Reinvesting in What We Know Works For Children and Adults In School

Susan Perry, PhD, MSW, LCSW, is a Senior Consultant at EXPLO Elevate, and Associate Head of School for Wellness and Belonging at Forsyth Country Day School.  

Moira Kelly is the President of EXPLO.  

This conversation was lightly edited.

Moira Kelly (MK)— Susan, we are in some very uncertain, volatile, stressful and anxiety provoking times. Most people I speak with are talking about how chaotic it feels. For those of us working in schools, what should we be thinking about? Focused on?

Susan Perry (SP)— I hear that. I am listening. Educator narratives about what it might feel like to be in schools during these times are real. I see it. So, what I often offer to consider is that I'd like for us to be thinking about and reinvesting in what we know works well for children in schools, for the parents who parent them, and for the faculty, administration and staff entrusted to teach them.

In order for children to grow and develop, they need predictable, reliable, meaningful, and well-boundaried relationships with adults.

Numerous studies from disparate fields of psychology, social sciences, educational leadership confirms this. In short, children with very few or no adults to whom they can turn is a child at risk. And when I say “child” I am referring to preK-12 aged students in our schools. Being that adult in students lives can take many forms through our many roles in schools, but in short, fulfilling that promise of education to be there for students and colleagues is a north star for me as a leader, educator, and learner. 

There are three unique features of our work environment in schools. It is good to revisit these and remind ourselves about these features. First, we are immersed in a work environment with children who are in the most developmentally changeable time of their life - in fact, so much so that many from a psychological theory perspective would argue that this period and the changeable nature of it won’t be replicated again during the human lifespan. 

Secondly, our work environment is highly relational – and emphasis on highly! I am not sure any other work environment is as infused with social interactions as ours is. For example, a full time teaching faculty member encounters hundreds of in person interactions every work day. 

And then, thirdly, we are outnumbered ! Students outnumber adults on our campuses, and it's awesome! And I hope everyone who reads this interview hears that. I mean, it is awesome to have that gift every day, to be a hopeful conduit for growth and development for a child. That’s what its about in schools. 

So your question intimates that there's something going on outside of school that can challenge us. This is of course true, and some of these societal/global dynamics disproportionately impact members of our communities. Children, because of their developmental stage of life are at risk, but there is also tremendous opportunity. Being an accessible, reliable, meaningful presence for a student in school can be challenged by a myriad of external concerns, including lived experiences that are anxiety provoking or include concerns for personal safety. Focusing on what we can do includes leaning into your mission and your vision and your values, taking care of yourself as an adult, paying attention to the “warning lights” on the professional dashboard and committing to create a community that genuinely cares for one another and can stand as a space for good in our lives. There are no shortcuts here. It does require an individual commitment. It requires a team commitment. 

All of us work on teams and schools, and it requires a community commitment. And so all three of those are really necessary as adults in schools entrusted for the growth and development of children given the time frame we're in to do it well. We need to be well to learn, and we need to learn to be well. Simple as that may sound, it is not easy. It’s some of the hardest aspects of our jobs but also the foundational source of some of the most rewarding aspects of the job we hold in schools.

One intentional practice that readers can adopt is an infinitely learnable skill – listening -- and I mean really listening to what children, parents, faculty are saying in the midst of all the pulls at our attention. Jim Dethmer, co-author of Conscious Leadership is probably right when he states:

“How we listen is the key to how we lead.”

Committing to being an active listener assists us in managing the emotions that come up in our work rather than trying to deny them. It leads to asking impactful questions, healthy boundaries, keeping courage, curiosity and creativity – in that order– more in the forefront of our decision making. Self awareness is the foundation of all healthy learning relationships and listening gets us to the solid first steps of it.  

MK— Susan, here's one of the things I wonder about, and maybe you can give us some guidance on this. I think that most schools would say we want to be student focused. That's where we want to live. At times, the adults, or some adults in the community can feel like what is happening elsewhere in the world is overwhelming. It might be overwhelming because they think things are so amiss that genuinely terrible things are happening. They might feel like they want to be authentic with students and talk about these important things that are swirling around the world. We’re living in a highly, highly politicized time. Many people have very strong feelings as to what should or should not be happening. Inevitably, students are going to come into school and a faculty member might want to say something, make some comment about something that is happening in the world. Or a student may be confused about something and wants to get some advice or to get an opinion from someone they trust in times like these. I'm saying “times like these,” meaning that we had distressing issues going on in the world 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. It’s the nature of being in the world. If you're giving advice to faculty members, what are the things you really need to keep in mind when you're working with students? 

SP— What informs my answer are the testimonies, the courage, and the leadership challenges many have shared with me as they try to figure out how to be their best selves in children’s lives every day as a teacher, parent, colleague or friend. My educational background, professional experience, and training has taught me to regard these exchanges through a constant cycle of assessment, challenge, and support - and respect. What a gift it is to be - hopefully - of assistance to someone else seeking to be purposeful in their work. My values as a leader of courage, integrity, and being committed to a colleagues well being don’t change because the content of a discussion is challenging. You are right. Things have changed. When I hear your question, what might I tell a faculty member? 

Being student focused should not be at the expense of being committed to adult preparation and support. We are going to have emotions at work, but it is not our job to process those or get our adult needs met through a relationship, a learning relationship with a student.

Relate to children is a yes. Identifying AND adopting student emotions as our own is a no. Children are not in our schools to help us figure out an adult thing. That's not their job, right?  Faculty need ongoing professional development and support from administrators about how to manage the significant changes in their professional landscape in fulfilling their professional responsibilities. 

MK— I want to go a little bit more deeply into the notion of adult preparation and processing things with students. Occasionally I have heard or worked with faculty members who are engaging with students in a way that they are processing their own feelings and emotions and issues, yet they would deny that what is actually going on. They explain their approach with the notion that students should be engaged in challenging, realistic conversations, and shouldn't be shielded from things. When this happens you are moving the focus away from students, and it becomes less about student learning, and I would say, in some ways, more about what I want you to learn. Within that context, can you talk a little bit about what you mean by preparing faculty members, and what it means when you talk about school not being the place for you to be processing your stuff?

SP— You bet. The premise being, of course, back to the beginning, we're a highly relational environment, right? We're going to be activated emotionally by our work because of that. But number three, we are always the adult. Okay, so the way I look at that is to really amplify some of the work of Dr. Susan Porter, where in our learning relationships there's a distinction between what we really want to do well in independent schools, which is to relate to our students. We want to be approachable. We want to be a positive influence on their learning trajectories and their positive life outcomes. We want to share with them our passions about our academic disciplines, our love of learning, instill in them some modicum of understanding, some super values that will help them serve well in life and be respectful of others. So by all means, absolutely, let's go ahead and relate to students in our learning relationships. 

I distinctly separate that from identifying with their emotions and adopting them as our own, including instances of over self disclosure by an adult. Now we've blurred the line. That’s why listening to understand and asking impactful questions keeps us in the adult world, and it keeps children in the kid world. We can relate to it, we can understand it, but we don't live there, and our professional responsibility isn't inclusive of our emotions, identifying with what a child is going through, and making it our own. That's where the blurriness becomes problematic.

That help? 

MK— Very much. Susan, you and I just presented – on different topics – at the Thrive conference of the National Association of Independent Schools. You on school leaders, me on heads of school and trustees, but in some ways, I think the connection between the two is that when the adults are supported and working in an optimal way, that is ultimately, helping kids.

SP— I'm a champion of faculty student relationships being optimized as learning relationships.

I look at the administrator role in an independent school as where our primary commitment is to support, grow, and develop others.

The majority of my work should be in the prevention side of healthy workplace relationships. I endeavor to be both approachable and available. 

MK— Can you talk about these for a second, Susan? The difference between being approachable and being available?

SP— Sure, by approachable I mean I regularly take an inventory of how my leadership may be impacting somebody else through feedback mechanisms. It’s a co-created learning relationship with my colleague. My availability requires that I also communicate clearly when and how I am available to others; specifically, is there an emergency need, requiring immediate response? An important need to address within the academic day, or a consult that can be scheduled sometime in the next couple of days. I also always have drop in time available each day on my calendar and I am a highly visible administrator - I try to get to all divisions on campus at least once during the week to demonstrate my advocacy, affirmation, and recognition of their role in the lives of students. One of my favorite leadership lessons was from an impactful leader who reminded me, “The most important person in the room is the other person in the room.” So true. 

MK— Susan, you do a lot of training with school leaders. Administrators. Thoughts on feedback?

SP— The polarity of feedback is that, on one hand, we have a need to to learn and to grow, but then on the other side we bump into this experience, which is an equally strong need to be seen, valued and heard. This dynamic is always present in feedback conversations. In fact, this was the focus on my workshop at NAIS Annual Conference. I utilize my training from the Harvard Graduate School Program in Education, the Principals Center and specifically the work of Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone. It doesn’t matter if you're in healthcare, finance, education, travel, you name it. Everybody's all rotten, nuts about feedback! And it causes a great deal of angst! We can get much better at it, and

I challenge people to develop their skills at receiving feedback– not “taking” it- learning how to take responsibility for their own learning, what and how we contribute to our cycles of growth, what are our sources of resistance, and learning to receive feedback well so that we stay in a healthy cycle of humility, learning and curiosity. 

MK— Susan, you and I can chat forever. I really value our conversations. Some final thoughts here as we wrap up?

SP— I keep coming back to listening as the language of leadership and learning relationships in schools -and author Jim Dethmer is probably right when he says "How we listen is how we lead.” Keep building those learning relationships and keep listening and asking powerful questions ! My favorite hashtag?  #alwayslearning :)