Dismantling Systemic Racism in Education: A Conversation with Henry J. Turner

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Elana Leoni:

Hello, and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience. And now, let's jump right into today's episode.

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. In this episode, I've sat down with Henry J. Turner. He is an award-winning high school principal, he's an author, he's a nationally renowned speaker, and he's just an overall good human. Very inspiring dude. During this episode, I asked Henry a few questions about his newly released book, which we're going to talk about in detail. It's all about changing the narrative. So the title is, Change the Narrative, How to Foster an Anti-Racist Culture In Your School. Henry talks about systematic racism, setting firm boundaries in anti-racist spaces, what you as an ed leader can do in this space, and even as an educator. And If you're working in the field of EdTech, what can you do? How can you be aware of all of these trends and best practices?

s as well. But I met Henry in: 2014

ut Henry, Henry was named the: 2020

Henry works collaboratively with educators, leaders, and communities, on how to create a culture that commits to diversity and equity and inclusion. How does he empower voices and address economic and racial disparities? You are going to hear from this man, he is super passionate about it. I am so excited to get the conversation started. Henry, welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, we are so excited to have you here, share your wisdom, share your time. I know you're about to go on vacation, so this is an exciting way to propel you into that. Welcome to the show.

Henry Turner:

Thanks so much for having me, I'm really excited to chat with you, and being here.

Elana Leoni:

ther. And we met initially in: 2014

Henry Turner:

Well, I appreciate that. I'm humbled by the support that we've gotten for the book, and I think that when I first met you, that that was really early in my journey of going to national conferences. And to me now, it's like going back home, when I go to these national conferences, because you get to see people who are going through the same fight, like you said, and you don't see for years, and sometimes even longer than that, and it's just so nice to reconnect. So, I appreciate that we have that moment, for sure.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I always tell people, especially because of ISTE and stuff, it's like I grew up with these folks that are so inspiring and on the same path with me and care about the same things in education. And it's sometimes my only time, once a year or once every couple of years, to see these folks. And there's big hugs, there's smiles, there's catch up, how can we collaborate? It's all the same.

Henry Turner:

el that experience [inaudible: 00:06:24

Elana Leoni:

last word I would [inaudible: 00:07:16

Because they're like, I need to defend myself. But educators, if you haven't been in a scene on social media, is they will uphold you to a code of being respectful and professional. And I know that's a little hard with the decaying of Twitter right now, but in general that happens. It happens in all virtual networks, and that authenticity of, I want to share, and want to help, I want to connect, I need help, is what drew me to it. And I don't think I could market anywhere else because it just feels, it's meaningful. It's not like, all right, let me get your retention for this product.

Henry Turner:

Definitely. I think, well, some of the best advice that I got from a mentor of mine, was that in education it's never business, It's always personal. We do mission-driven work, and so we all have different opinions about how to do this work, which makes it exciting. But at the same time, is that you have to be a human focused person in order to be successful in this work. And I think that's true of whether you're an administrator or whether you're a company supporting a school, that you have to be mission driven, because educators and kids see right through you when that's not your core.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And one of the things we focus on in our agency is, the keyword is relationships. How do we create relationships in education? And even though that's not something that a typical marketing director or an executive C-suite would say, here's my budget for relationships. They say, here's my budget for lead gen. We believe in relationships in education because they are so powerful, they are so authentic. And that's what you end up doing if you do it well, in terms of social media and content and community. But we're digressing, because we have so much awesome things to talk about. I'd love to get into your book. So, you recently wrote the book, was it a year ago at this point now?

Henry Turner:

ah, a little over a year ago.: 2022

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, it's called Change the Narrative, How to Foster an Anti-Racist Culture in Your School, and you co-wrote it with Kathy Lopes. So, tell me about this journey, because you didn't just say, all right, I'm going to write a book on how to change the narrative. What was your journey humming towards this book, and saying, you know what? A book I think might really help solidify and give some people some answers, open up the dialogue, and have some actual practical strategies? How did you get to that point? Because I think this is your first book, right?

Henry Turner:

that's been at my core. So in: 2020

Recognizing that, for some, for the first time, recognizing that systemic racism existed in their school, disproportionality existed in their school. And I had the experience as a school leader of seeing some success, seeing some progress, and what it takes. My passion is the change process, how to help organizations to change so that it's more in line with its core values and its mission. And so, I started to really write about the change process and leadership from that perspective. And there's a lot of books around DEI that's about your own self work, how do you help a classroom? Or how do you do your own work, your own journey, as a person, or as an educator? But there really isn't anything out there about how do you lead this work? How do you get other people to do this kind of work in your organization, or in your school?

And so, a lot of school leaders started reaching out to me during that time, and I felt like this was the right time to start writing. The book was also some good therapy for me, during COVID, during a very tough time as a school leader. And what I learned during the first part of that process was just how ambitious of a project I had taken on. And I got some good advice from a friend who's written a book to take on a co-author, I think that was probably the best decision that I made. Because I am a leader who's passionate about the change process, and Kathy is a social worker who cares about who... Not that I don't care about people, but she's very people-focused. And so, meshing our two skillsets, I think made it much more practical and applicable for leaders. So whether you're an organizational leader, I think it works, a business leader, I think you can learn things from there. If you're a school leader, you'll learn things in there, and if you're a classroom teacher, you'll learn.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And even in the world of EdTech too, say, if I go in with the lens of, wow, these are what my target audience and my buyers and my users, these are the things that they're working towards, these are some of their challenges. And I always talk to them about how can we work with you as a partner, be value-based. Let's actually work and give you some... Always, I come to it, what are your challenges? Not here's my product. And really important to know that this is something that you're going to always be fighting for, this is something that's always going to have some nooks and crannies and, oh, I didn't think of that, and now there's this new thing, and how does AI affect this, and all of this stuff.

Henry Turner:

ere, particularly around that: 2020

I Think that for school leaders who are really thinking strategically, that they are asking right now, how do I begin? And I think that that's a critical question for, again, for those of us who support them, and for companies to recognize that, for a lot of schools, some range of DEI work is emerging as a core value for a lot of school leaders, and so to support them is critical, and recognize that it's not just a one-year initiative, that it's really the foundation of the work they're doing.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And so, in a minute, I'm going to ask you to get into those practical ways, because I think my biggest question is how do I get started? This feels overwhelming. We had Alex Shevrin come on, and she talked about trauma-informed education. And to that end, it was also like, where do we get started? This is heavy. But one of the small things I can do as an educator, but as a school leader, what are the other things? So, we get into that in a second, but the one thing I just want to mention is, sometimes when we think about something, we like to parse it out as a goal, like you said. Let's eliminate racism in a year. And as a marketer, we're very linear oriented, okay, I can get this many impressions, I can do all of these things, as an educator, I'm going to bookmark, I got a plan, I got things organized, and I get frustrated when things go backwards sometimes and I'm not making progress, but maybe going backwards is part of the progress.

I just want to note that those are two very... The people that we're talking about have this linear mindset, but as community builders, we know that it's a co-movement, you're co-designing. It does not work if it does not work with your community, either your school community, your educators, your parents, your leaders. So you're co-creating with them, and with that, you're going to have a lot to jumble. So I just wanted to point that out, because it's something that my audience struggles with at times too, is, gosh, community, building community and movements is really hard. Yes, because you all are moving together and co-creating, making sure it meets all your needs.

Henry Turner:

100%. And I think in the world of smart goals and OKRs, that we have to recognize that vision setting is also really critical as well. And so, that if our goal is to eliminate disproportionality in our school, that is not going to be a one-year plan. That's your overarching objective, that's your vision. The changes that you're thinking about need to connect to that, that's the strategic planning and the scaling. And there is some ideas that, like grading, for example, is a really complex topic. And yet, there are some ideas, I think, school leaders have said, well, that seems really, really interesting, let's get into that work right away.

Or, they see the disproportionality and they want to do really big things right away, and what happens is not only the pushback, which we expect, but also they're not prepared for that level of change. So starting small, starting in ways where people can recognize where your values are, they can see the low hanging fruit that is working to help kids to feel seen and feel connected in your school. And then, looking at structural change, looking at transformative change down the road, is I think the right strategy to have.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I'm hearing scaffolding, finding those mini wins to get people on board. I think instructional coaches do that well too. It's like, what's going to make you happy? And even though you don't think that's awesome, get them on board with a mini win, scaffold it so it's not so intense and jarring, and bring them on board, co-create with them. That's awesome.

Henry Turner:

me, and the school [inaudible: 00:18:59

Elana Leoni:

So, ironically you're saying to almost scale change and to create this momentum to eventually get a bigger movement around it, you have to start small, and you have to do unscalable things to "scale." And I'm using the word scale just because I feel like in EdTech they use that a lot, of like, all right, we got to make sure that we can do things at scale, that eventually apply to more people and not these one-on-one. But we relationships, like you said, we have to do the unscalable to eventually reach more people.

Henry Turner:

I think scale is the right word. And my wife is in a tech company, I have friends who are in tech companies, and their best innovations are, whether they are human focused innovations or tech focused innovations, are using the design thinking process to scale. And the same thing is true in the school world as well. A teacher needs to try out an instructional strategy, and then they can build it and implement it on a more regular basis. And this work is just so hard, our personal selves are connected to culture, connected to race, and so therefore we bring our own history into this work, and sometimes that can be traumatizing, sometimes that can make a change more complicated. And so therefore we need to be in an environment where we can make mistakes.

And I often say that sometimes the culture breakers in our school communities are those who are trying to win the anti-racist Olympics. The people who are judging anyone who says the wrong thing the wrong way, or makes some sort of mistake, small or large, and we have to recognize is that the people who are in our school are the people who are part of our community. And so we need to think about how to help them to grow and improve as opposed to just castigating them as someone who's inferior or bad or never going to grow.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I had José Vilson on our podcast, and he is the founder of the EduColor Movement, talks a lot about math and its intersection with racism and social justice, and all sorts of things. And he talked about, you can't always shy away from those difficult conversations, because if we're so afraid we're going to say the wrong thing, or we just don't have the energy to have those difficult conversations, we never move forward in that progress. So how do we create a safe enough space that we begin to have these conversations? So, I want to get into the little things you talked about though, about what are some things from a leadership perspective, or I'm an educator and I'm interested, this is something on my to-do list for this school year, but I have nowhere to start, and it feels overwhelming, and I know the book goes into lots of things, but can you tease out some things that are resonating with your readers?

Henry Turner:

Yeah, for sure. So, I always say that the easiest thing that we've ever did in our school was that we used our student information system and our student learning system and gave students the permission to write their name phonetically, or to record their name. So that on day one, teachers can say the students' names correctly. And that is an easy way that helps students to feel seen, to feel heard in their classroom, and there is not one person who's going to go to a school committee meeting criticizing the school for doing it. That is a DEI-focused anti-racist way of making sure that students feel included, and it's something that's good for all kids. And that is a learning lesson that anti-racist work is good for all kids. And so, starting with a small step like that, is a great strategy. I also think that for school leaders, how do we think about some of the instructional strategies that we're trying to implement in our school are great strategies as well.

SO, UDL for example, can be an anti-racist instructional strategy, so long as we are using a culturally responsive mindset to make sure that all students feel included. So how do we build relationships on day one through 180 with our students? How do we get to know who they are? What is their background? What are their identities? What are the ways in which they feel celebrated, and they feel successful? What are the ways in which they don't feel successful, or they feel isolated? And the more that as we as educators can understand that, and see how we can bring their culture into our classroom, and their strengths from their cultures into our classrooms so that they're successful, the more successful those students will be. And then we can use the UDL strategies, you can use different pathways for students to meet those high expectations that we have for them.

And so, I think for those of us who are thinking about differentiated instructions, or using instruction, or using UDL as a lens for what effective instruction is, we want to start with helping educators to learn about how to create a culture responsive classroom. And the last thing I would say is, how do we make sure that we are creating safe classrooms and safe hallways? And so, whether it's creating a clear protocol for responding to a hate incident, so that you are messaging it in a way that demonstrate that these incidents are a violation of your core values as a school, that communication is a critical step to rooting out hate in your school. In the classroom, how are we making sure that all students feel safe? And an example that we use in the book is, there was a practice where students would debate whether they should use the N word in a book like Huckleberry Finn.

It's not going to [inaudible: 00:25:35

Elana Leoni:

And all of my mind, always, is like, yes, yes, and I'm head nodding, but how is sometimes harder, and especially at school systems that tend to move a little bit slower depending on the environment you're in. But as a leader, you set the tone, and you are actually allowing the space. But what if an educator doesn't have that support and they're working? And then also even as a leader, how do you get consensus to say, here's what we believe in, here are our policies? I imagine that takes a lot of time too. Can you walk us through just how does this all get done? Do you have committees? And then how do you empower the educators? And then if educators aren't empowered? I know those are lots of questions, but I'm just like, how does this all work? In my head.

Henry Turner:

Yeah. So, one concept that we talked about is that there are many different branches in our work as educators, and so we need to choose one of them that we're going to lean into. So whether it's our personal work, whether it's our work with students, whether it's our work with our colleagues, how we interact with our colleagues, how we develop curriculum, policymaking... We shouldn't just dive into all of it, we need to choose what is the area that we really want to work into? And that decision should come out of some data of where are your biggest challenges. And so, another concept that we talk about is using cycle of inquiry as a way of thinking through your DEI work. So, starting with learning and then doing some reflection. Based on what I'm learning, how does it impact my school? Then taking some sort of action, an action step, and then assessing the work.

So I'll give you an example. So we learned that, when I first started, that 25% of our students were on IEPs. Which, the state average in our state was 15%. And so when we dove even deeper, we found that 50%, 5-0, 50% of our Black students were on IEPs, half of them. And so there was clear disproportionality. And what we saw as a community was that there were many people who thought we were doing the right thing, because IEP was a way that kids got support. Now, I always say that having a disability is not, nothing wrong with having a disability, what's wrong is saying that a student has a disability when they don't have a disability. And so, we started with that data, and we didn't go straight into an action, we wanted to have a discussion as a community. Where do we think this is coming from?

to learn where the [inaudible: 00:28:36

So, how are we checking our bias in an IEP meeting? We also created an accommodation plan. Here are some steps that teachers can take to support students when they're struggling in the class. That's another strategy that you can take. I think that it's certainly, when you're a leader, those are things that you should, or you can, help to foster a larger group to have that conversation. When you're a classroom teacher and you notice these disparities, that can be really isolating. And so thinking about your own classroom, or how can you partner with some of your colleagues when you notice some of these disparities? And then taking small steps in your own classroom. Again, creating some sort of accommodation plan. We said that it was okay for students to have preferential seating or extended time. They don't have to have a disability in order to do that, those should be strategies we're trying for all students. And when we look through that lens, we'll see that there are some easy steps that you can take to meet the needs of your students.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. So that's really helpful, because I'm like how? How do you do it? But I love how you approach, let's look at what data is available and become informed as much as possible, and let that fuel our curiosity. There's the UDL component to it, there's design thinking, reminiscing of how do I become user-centric in what we're eventually designing? Even almost PDL, what's my driving question based on real life situations and my users needs? So I love that you come in, okay, now that we have actually more data than we've ever had before with the introduction of AI, I can have a tool in my classroom and know what percentage I'm speaking versus my students are speaking. And that alone is an eye-opening insight, and what types of students are speaking up. And even just becoming aware is a big step in the beginning, right?

Henry Turner:

Absolutely. And just honing in on what is the data that you really want to look at, and that's going to be useful for you. And I have found that educators get overwhelmed by the amount of data that they're seeing, but what are the questions that you're looking to answer, and using that data to inform. I also think that because we're in a mission driven field, as we were talking about earlier, I think that as teachers, we are ready to just go right into action. And a story that I remember is that, this is a tech story, but we did some professional development on checking for understanding software. And we presented the software that we were going to ask people to use, and the next day we see kids just walking through the hallways with their eyes sort of spinning, and we're like, what's going on? They're like, well, our teachers are asking us to use the software, for us to answer questions, and so every teacher did it the next day.

the action that we [inaudible: 00:33:49

Elana Leoni:

Yes. And as you were talking, I sometimes like to create parallels to the business world, and lean startup methodology, Steve Blank, came from Berkeley, I did a lot of classes with him, and we talk about what are the unintended consequences that you may never think of? And that gets you to flip the problem, because you get really excited and you get emotionally attached to what you're doing, you're like, yeah, this is going to be awesome. But then your users will flip it, and go, oh, I didn't even think they'd use it that way, or, oh no, they're using it that way, and that's not... So what are the unintended uses or consequences of your product or what you're doing is really important, that you were saying.

Henry Turner:

Can you say one thing to that?

Elana Leoni:

Yeah.

Henry Turner:

So we are taking the next several years reflecting on how to mitigate our bias and our grading practices. And so, one way that has been discussed by a lot of writers is to reduce the impact of homework, because it's more of a compliance grade. And so, teachers started to reduce the grades that they give for homework, but what they found is that some students aren't going to do their homework because there isn't a grade. There's a consequence to it, even if your intent is good. And so, it took a lot of time to think about what is the right balance, so that we're getting students to do work that we feel like is essential, and also to not harm them because it's... Or just grade them for compliance, but actually for what they're learning. And that ends up creating more questions, to your point.

Elana Leoni:

And that's good, because it's working hard and it's always evolving. There's no right one blanket answer for everyone as well.

Henry Turner:

Agreed.

Elana Leoni:

So, your book, it evokes a lot of questions, but it gives a lot of practical examples and strategies, and I love how you say, here's what you can do as a leader, but here are also some things that you can do as a person, as an educator, and then your community at large too, with families. And we're all in this together, and just one stakeholder in education is never going to move any needle forward. So, I thank you for writing this book, for those of you that are interested, we'll put it in the show notes. It's called, again, Change the Narrative, How to Foster an Anti-Racist Culture in Your School. It is by Dave Burgess, gosh, he has produced so many amazing books, and helped get educator voices out there. And what website is it on again? Is it on his, Dave Burgess, but you can also get it on Amazon?

Henry Turner:

People can get it on Amazon, yep. They can also get it at DBC Inc as well.

Elana Leoni:

Okay, awesome. Well, thank you for sharing about your book, Henry. I hope people buy it, I hope people look at it with that really inquisitive, curiosity driven, I wonder, and what is the data that can help support this, and how can we start? The hardest part of this all is starting, and then continuing when you hit some setbacks. Because this isn't going to be easy, it's never easy. Right?

Henry Turner:

Agreed.

Elana Leoni:

Awesome. Thank you, Henry.

Thanks everyone for listening to this week's episode. If you're interested more in this topic and would love to dive a little bit deeper, you can read Henry's book, we'll put a link to it in the show notes, or you can get in touch with Henry on social media. He is @Turner, T-U-R-N-E-R H-J on Twitter/X, and probably has the same handle. We'll put all of his socials and contact information as well in the show notes. Speaking of the show notes, they're located at leoniconsultinggroup.com, so that's L-E-O-N-I consulting, two Gs, so consultinggroup.com/ 55. So just type in the number 55. We will see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.