A Conversation with Zaretta Hammond: Taking the Distance Out of the Learning
We were thrilled to have the opportunity PPS-SF had to be part of a discussion with educator, coach, and author, Zaretta Hammond. She shared a wealth of advice that is immediately useful for parents, educators, and school leaders too! We especially loved all the practical tips for how we parents can reframe what counts as “learning at home.” For example, playing Taboo is learning!
Thank you to all who sent questions in advance to help inform the direction of the conversation. Ms. Hammond touched on a wide array of topics and shared lots of tips that families and educators can use right now to support learning at home.
We encourage you to watch the video!
Here are a few key takeaways:
Students are learning all the time - it doesn’t have to look like school to be learning. And parents are teaching kids all the time too.
Hammond noted that in the rush to get kids connected with technology and packets, “we haven't paused to take a breath to really talk about how do we empower students who continue to be their natural selves as learners—because all brains learn. All kids learn, no matter where they are…” She went on to note that the focus should be on “helping kids . . . reclaim that natural learning ability.”
“Parents are teaching their children things all the time. They may not know the jargon - but if you've taught your child to be potty trained, you know pedagogy, you just don't call it that!
We need to let go of the idea that learning only happens at school. We can set it up so a child “bumps into learning no matter where they go.” Hammond calls this the “hide the vegetables” approach. What feels like fun and playing games is actually learning!
Culturally responsive design principals can help teachers connect to home culture and better engage parents in the learning process at home
According to Hammond, many students and parents are members of collectivist cultures (as opposed to more individualist culture that dominates much of our educational and other systems). Some examples of more collectivist approaches to learning include learning through apprenticeship - this could look like kids helping parents chop vegetables, and being in conversation with the child during that time. Ideally there would be connection and feedback between the parents and teachers too.
Now is not the time to focus on new content: the emphasis should be on deepening background knowledge and developing word wealth
She calls background knowledge, a key equity issue. “The more shallow your background knowledge, the less your comprehension.” So to help kids meet standards, it makes sense to prioritize developing background knowledge. This means going deeper and expanding on what they already know.
How? Get kids to read non-fiction books, watch documentaries or educational programming on T.V., or learn from parents about something they have expertise in. This could be cooking (chemistry), gardening etc.
Word wealth should also be an emphasis during this time. This includes talking about words, the history of words, and learning new words. Parents can do this by making a word scavenger hunt or having discussions about slang words and how they have evolved from a grandparent’s generation to the current day. “Grandma used to call that groovy right, and then we called it sweet, and now y'all call it tight, oh wow!” Hammond says these types of conversations “Ignite intellectual curiosity” and “leverage intergenerational assets” She says we need to “stop with the narrative that families have nothing: they have no internet, they have no this, they have no that. That's what I'm hearing when they have assets galore!”
Games and mazes are low-tech/high-impact learning tools.
Mazes make great learning tools for younger kids. Hammond says these “train the brain” and “set it up to start to read.”
Games: Taboo, Boggle and Heads-Up were suggested. Keep playing games with a purpose - let kids see that they are getting better. This is a natural dopamine hit to the brain that keeps us coming back.
There are ways schools can put the focus on building trust and relationships even during distance learning
A class credo, manifesto, poem - all say it together boosts oxytocin. Fun learning kits that come in the mail to spark creativity,
Parents should let go of trying to make this time “just like school”
Focus on the most high leverage things you can do and “let the rest go.” She says this time is not going to “look like school it's not gonna feel like school, but if we can deepen background knowledge build word wealth, and get kids to actually chew through investigation then they are going to continue to be exercising their learning muscles.”
There needs to be less emphasis put on “compliant behavior” in the classroom - and more “organized messiness.”
“Intellectual curiosity is messy, sometimes it can be a little loud. There's a low hum but it's an organized messiness that has to be set up right.”
Teachers should be encouraged to innovate, try new things out and take the results back to collaborative inquiry groups to discuss what worked. Use the concept of iteration like in the design-thinking framework.
Hammond makes the analogy to “the first pancake.” “Nobody gets upset when we're making pancakes and the first one comes off burnt on one side crunchy and gooey on the other. No, nobody says shut down the kitchen, no pancakes today! No, no one says that, instead what they say is ‘okay cook make your adjustments'.”
We need to help kids shift from being dependent learners to being independent learners
Hammond stressed that students need more academic rigor, not less. She stresses that we need to be innovative and iterative especially “when it comes to black and brown, underachieving kids . . . [who] underperform because that's what we've set up—this cycle of underperformance. Not because they're not capable.” She says the system needs to change dramatically. The focus needs to be on “leveling-up” and creating cognitively independent versus compliant learners.
The focus of school should be less on covering content and testing on it and more on “the student becoming a powerful learner.”
Improving information processing skills is critical to counteracting the “inequity by design” that exists in our public schools. This inequity, said Hammond, has been “built not just on white-supremacy culture, but also on he notion of under-educating black, brown, and English learner [students] consistently. From the beginning our public schools were apartheid schools.”
She believes we can begin to rectify this history of inequity by design, “by helping students improve their capacity to carry that cognitive load.” She pushes back on the idea of students needing help to acquire more of a “growth-mindset” or “get more grit.” noting that these children come with “double grit, and if they’re English Learners they’re coming not only with some grit but a superpower!
The focus of assessment should be on giving feedback to students - help them “level-up” their learning
Hammond admits that the the current system of testing and assessment “has kind-of gone overboard” but maintains that the positive side of the assessment coin is that now we are looking at disaggregated data so schools can’t “sweep it under the rug” when “black and brown kids, English learners, special education kids were not thriving.”
Assessment needs to let students know how they are progressing. “Only the learner learns. . . . You can't pour info in the kids head.” She compares teaching to the work of an athletic coach who’s job it is to motivate and guide an athlete to improve. The GOAT Serena Williams has a coach . . . there are things she cannot see . . . she needs that formative feedback so that she can course correct. Our students need to learn the skill. . . [get] formative assessment so they can continue to progress.”
Crisis brings opportunities
This might be a time to “admit what's going wrong but there's also a way to look at this with fresh eyes so that's kind of the place where I've been coming from in terms of supporting both teachers and parents”
Hammond thinks this time will shed light on what structures and relationships in schools are strong, and where work needs to be focussed when students return to school. School leaders can use this time to map what is working well and what is not and when school is back, say “here are the cracks we saw, this is what we collectively need to repair.”
Parents should focus on maintaining sanity and emotional stability, expand definition of learning to include practical life experiences.
In response to a parent who asked about expectations of teacher responsiveness during this time, Hammond suggested that if teachers are not available and able to respond during this time, parents should not “worry about trying to cover that packet. You need to teach your child whatever you need to — practical life experiences you can teach them. There are lots of things that we can do as parents where our child will not lose learning time. You should not get frustrated, this is about maintaining your sanity and your emotional stability, in the service of being available to your children. If that's causing you stress let it go be, like Frozen, let it go!”
