Equity, Social Justice, and Trauma-Informed Education: A Conversation with Alex Shevrin Venet

,: 2023

Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.

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.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week I am really excited to be sitting down with educator and author Alex Shevrin Venet. Today we'll be talking about all things equity, trauma, informed education, social justice. And what I love about my conversation with Alex and her book that we'll get into is that sometimes these can be used as buzzwords and she breaks it down and defines exactly what they are. And I think you do the exact opposite of making them buzzwordy. So we're going to define them. We're going to get into those really serious challenging issues. But more importantly, we're going to be talking about how EdTech school leaders and educators can all play a role. How do I get started? What can I do? So a little bit about Alex before we get into this conversation. Alex Shevrin Venet is a educator, she's an author, she's a professional development facilitator, and she's based in Vermont.

She teaches community college and graduate teacher education. And before that she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school. And she'll probably talk a little bit about her experience because part of it inspired this book. She is the co-founder of the the Nurturing the Nurturers Collective, A Healing Community for Educators. And when I saw that, Alex, I was like, we need to talk because I do some similar work with a group called Nourish Teachers. Anyways, her first book, Equity Centered Trauma Informed Education is a bestseller at WW Norton. And that's what we're going to be talking about. And that's what I've been reading for the last two weeks. And it's amazing. I'm fangirling you really, so proud of the work and the thought that you've put into it and how you've moved forward the field in such a significant way.

ter and we started talking in: 2014

So sometimes I see friendships that I've started in the beginning and I don't talk to them for years, but I'm consistently sharing your stuff because your voice is so important to this work. So anyways, I am just so grateful for you to be on this show. Welcome Alex to all things marketing and education.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. And it is so funny how you can trace back your relationships on social media that it reminds me of, I don't know if they still have this feature on Facebook, but they at least used to have a see friendship feature on Facebook where you could go back and look at all the ways you interacted. And there's something really nice about having a little digital scrapbook of your relationships like that.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And with the Facebook one though, you're like, you've been friends for three years and you're like, that's my mom. So it usually doesn't fully work out. That's why with Twitter I'm like, okay, we were intentionally talking at some point.

Okay, so let's get into a couple of these questions. As I started prepping for it and you prepping for this episode, I was like, gosh, there's so much we can talk about. I mean, you wrote a book on it, so how do we pick what's the most important for this audience of EdTech professionals and educators? But I figured we would start almost in the order of your book a little bit, and I'd love to start with the story about your mom because when you talk about it in the intro and it really hit home for me and I was like, oh, I didn't even know that that was a thing and it reminded me so much of myself. So I'd love for you to just talk about maybe what inspired the book, but particularly starting with that story of your mom.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Yeah, so I'll back up a little and say that part of what inspired writing this was around... I'm going to start that over. So I'll start at what inspired me to write this book, which is that I had been teaching in this alternative school and the majority of students that we had there had experienced some kind of trauma and definitely grief and hard times. Our school was one where they would get referred from their public school. They usually weren't super happy about it. And so it was the type of we call an outside placement where students didn't necessarily want to be, but they were having a hard time. And so they arrived there and we really operated from this very trauma informed perspective before it was really even called trauma informed and really tried to make it a place where even though students might not have intended to end up there, that they felt really affirmed and cared for and they could really grow.

And so after being there for a few years, I was doing my master's degree and I was also getting involved in writing for Edutopia. And so I started spending more time both online and at conferences with educators from a lot of different settings. And when I would talk about the types of approaches that we had in our school, people would really stare at me, you do that or what is this trauma thing that you're talking about? And I just started to realize that what was kind of normal in our little bubble of an alternative school was really not what folks were talking about in the mainstream at that time. And so I got really interested in how can we communicate this type of information more broadly because people want and need these types of strategies. And then also, I'm just a person where when I get interested in something, I really tunnel deep into it.

And so I started reading as much as I could find about trauma and trauma informed practices both in education and other settings. And so all of this led me to make some observations about the types of conversations people were having about trauma and children and children with trauma in schools. And one of the things I observed was that most of the examples people would use of children experiencing trauma in these books or workshops I was going to looked one of a couple ways. One way that it would look would be the really sad kid with their head down on their hand and the stock photos that would go with articles even sometimes on Edutopia, the stock photos looked like a really sad, depressed kid. And then the other way that it would look was sort of the explosive and out of control kid. So responding to their trauma by having behavioral challenges.

And it's true that those can both be presentations of trauma, but I start my book with a different story because it feels really important to me that educators understand that you can't make assumptions about whose experiencing trauma by looking at them. So what I share in the intro to my book is that my mother grew up in upstate New York and she had a mother who had some significant mental health problems and her father was kind of doing the best that he could, but with limited resources to really support my mom and her siblings. And so my mom was experiencing trauma at home. And when she was in school, she kind of responded to her own trauma by trying to be a great student and be really involved because that opened up opportunities for her to actually do things like stay at school, to be part of the yearbook club or to have additional lessons.

And that felt like a good and connected place for her. And so if you were a teacher looking at my mom in school, you would see someone who was put together. You would see someone who was doing really well in her classes, who was kind and got along with her peers. She didn't look like the kid with her head down on her arm and she didn't look like the kid who's acting out. And so I share that story because to me I sort of hold that as an example of how we can't make those assumptions. And that's important because my mom needed trauma informed practices at school just as much as those other presentations. She needed teachers to care about her and to ask her how she was and to provide her with social and emotional support. The other reason that I started the book with the story about my mom, and I don't necessarily specifically talk about this in this way in the book, is that I actually started writing this book about three months after my mom died, after a really short time being diagnosed with a aggressive cancer.

And so for me, my own traumatic grief really shaped how I wrote the book because I wasn't writing about trauma from a detached standpoint of this is something that happens to other people, this is something that happens just to kids, teachers are totally fine, we're all good. I was really writing from a place of this is something I'm currently going through. And so that really shaped how I wrote about teachers being people who experienced trauma and what we need out of trauma informed practices as well.

Elana Leoni:

Thank you for sharing that, Alex. And I'm sorry for your loss.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Thank you.

Elana Leoni:

I think that just pausing on wow, that that's something I never even thought of, like you said as an example for trauma and how can I support all of my students in my classroom and try not to make assumptions because kids can hide things very well. And what I like about your book is there are action oriented things embedded throughout it, whether they're mind shifts or actually strategies of practice too. So I talked about this in the intro, but trauma-informed education, you've mentioned it in your book being a buzzword or a buzz phrase. I'd love for you to just talk about how you've seen that, talk more about that. And this also may be a good time to define some terms. What exactly is trauma and what does it mean to be trauma informed and have trauma informed practices?

Alex Shevrin Venet:

So a fun and annoying thing about this field is that every single person that you ask is going to give you a different answer to those questions because well, let's just start with trauma. So trauma, everybody has sort of a gut response to what that means, and that could be shaped by a lot of different things. It could be shaped by what you experience in your own life and what you have labeled trauma. It could be the media that you watch and how that talks about what trauma is and what it looks like. I've been like rewatching Grey's Anatomy lately, and they talk about trauma a lot. And sort of from my trauma studies lens, I go, what is this teaching people about what trauma means? And part of the reason we have all these different perspectives on it is not just our own experience in the media, but also there's a lot of fields of study that contribute to how we understand trauma.

For example, in the field of neuroscience, people are looking at how trauma changes the brain. In the field of sociology, people look at how do folks make meaning of trauma. In the field of, I don't know, history and cultural studies people look at how is trauma passed down and what did trauma mean at different times? And so when it comes to defining trauma as an educator, you actually have a lot of different streams from which to pull to understand trauma for yourself. And so actually writing a definition of trauma in the book was hard because you want to have something concise, but that also captures a little bit of all those things. And so what I ended up with as a definition of trauma is that trauma can be both an individual and collective response to life-threatening events, harmful conditions or a prolonged dangerous or stressful environment.

Not all stressful experiences are traumatic to individuals. And for those who do develop a trauma response, the impact can be intense, pervasive, and disruptive, affecting both the mind and the body. So there's a lot in that definition, and it's still really incomplete. A shorter way to say that would be that trauma is what overwhelms us and changes the way that we make meaning and interact with the world. Trauma is often something that takes over all of our normal coping strategies or ways of handling things and then leaves an impact on how we think about ourselves, how we relate to other people. And there's all kinds of different ways to really look at the influence of that.

I actually just wrote a book chapter with my colleague, Addison Dwayne, that we can link it in the show notes. It's in a new volume from NCTE, the National Council for Teachers of English. And it's a book about trauma in the English language arts classroom. And Addison and I wrote a chapter called 13 Ways of Looking at Trauma to capture this idea that there are so many lenses through which you can understand trauma. And instead of trying to find the perfect little definition, it's actually more helpful maybe to understand that there's so many dimensions and to just be a constant learner about it. So if trauma as a concept is that multifaceted, you can only imagine that trauma informed education is also very multifaceted.

An interesting thing about trauma informed education is that there's no central authority or owner of trauma informed education. I would maybe draw a parallel with, I would imagine on this podcast you might have talked about project-based learning. I would draw parallel with that a little bit because it's a similar thing where project-based learning captures kind of a big philosophy and you'll find a lot of people defining it in different ways and different resources about it. Trauma informed education is pretty similar in that sense because there's not a single authority, there's not a single framework, and a lot of people are going to define it in different ways.

So I define trauma informed education as encompassing, not only how we're responsive to students who have maybe already experienced trauma, but we're also looking at preventing trauma from happening inside of schools. And we are transforming the learning environment for everyone through an understanding of trauma. And we're also looking at how school and schooling can help to disrupt systems that cause trauma in our world. So I take a really huge view of trauma informed education because I think that opens lots of exciting conversations for us. You will find other definitions of trauma informed education that are much more specific or maybe focus on one area of those things but I like to get big and messy.

Elana Leoni:

And what I loved about your definition is it's not just, here's what it is, here's trauma, trauma informed education, it's the proactive part that kind of felt empowering to me, okay, how can we begin to prevent it at times or not be part of the system that fuels it? And that felt like empowering and you really leaned into that in the book. So I applaud you for kind of opening it up, even though like you said, it's a bit of a wild well west and it's not, I mean, like you said, it's the same thing as project-based learning or social and emotional learning, and everyone has their own definition, but you clearly start out the book laying out what it is also what it isn't. You talk specifically about, I love the way you put it, it was like some people say they're trauma informed, but it's nowhere to seen or it's behind the school, I'm probably butchering your words, but I love your examples around that. I'm like, oh yeah, I've seen that.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Yes. Well, and what you're referring to is actually how I talk about how equity fits into all of this.

Elana Leoni:

Oh, yes. Equity. Let's get into that too.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Yes. Because a big piece of how I talk about trauma informed education is that it has to be really linked in and inextricable from equity work in schools. Because as I was saying before, as I sort of got nerdy about trauma informed education and tried to read all I could and see how other people were doing it, I started noticing that a lot of times when people would talk about trauma informed education, they would leave out of the conversation factors, what type of students are maybe more at risk of experiencing trauma? What are the things that might cause trauma for some students inside of schools? How are some students supported to heal and how are other students punished for how they respond to trauma?

And the answers to all those questions include discussions of race and disability and income inequality and access to resources and all of those things are part of an equity conversation. And so by saying equity centered, I really make a distinction between the section that you're talking about I talk about if you're not equity centered, equity is sometimes on the side for people or it is underground or it's in the ether where maybe people refer to it, but they don't ever actually take it up or engage with it. And so although it makes for a wordy concept, the reason I talk about equity centered trauma informed education altogether is to really emphasize that it's the same approach. It all goes together.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And you can't really talk about trauma in your definition of trauma if you don't talk about equity and some of the causes around it. And that's what I really loved is, okay, what's the state? And some of even just the stats you have in there are alarming. You have a stat going back to the trauma part, but one half and three fourths of all children will experience a potentially traumatic event prior to age 18. And almost one in five students don't have access to a counselor. And students of color and poorer students are less likely to have a counselor. And you have tons of stats throughout the book.

And so sometimes we think about, oh you know, this doesn't happen in my classroom or my district or as an EdTech professional, I shouldn't be worried about this. And maybe that's more of a societal view of let's focus on academics in school and the rest of it is not a higher priority. And you bring some stats to say, it's here, we got to deal with it. We got to deal with it in a way that isn't just reactive, but proactive, right?

Alex Shevrin Venet:

n though the book came out in: 2021

Elana Leoni:

Yeah, I was reading somewhere, it was either Twitter or Facebook or somewhere and also in the community of educators just echoing this sentiment, but even veteran educators, 20 plus years in the classroom, they say it's different. And sometimes they can't put their finger on why it's different and they know it has to do with the pandemic or they know it has to do potentially with trauma, but they can't quite figure it out and they're just kind of seeing the reactions to it all. And it becomes like, oh, I don't know how to deal with this, somebody helped me. And they're screaming out on forums in communities to say help. And also because education tends to be somewhat of a siloed profession. And it made me laugh when you were talking about going to conferences and you're like, isn't the world this, this beautiful bubble? But we don't know until we actually start talking with educators what it's like out there and am I alone? And what we're seeing across all of education is teachers are going and district administrators going, whoa, I'm not equipped to figure out even what's going on sometimes.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

And I think it's hard too because something I talk a lot about in this book and in my work in general is being able to hold a systems lens at the same time that you're doing your individual work. And what I mean by a systems lens is an understanding of how sort of the larger factors at play contribute to what's going on for an individual person. So for example, a student who comes late to class every day, sometimes if we're just holding an individual lens, we might say, well, that student doesn't care about being on time, or they need to get their act together, we need to give them punishment so that they'll care more about getting to class on time. But if we back up and look at a systems lens, we start to think about things like, okay, well what is causing the student to come late every day?

And maybe we go, okay, well their parent is trying to get them to school every day and then rush off to the job that they're working. And if I have a systems lens, I might understand how economic inequality is contributing to stress for that family. I might understand how the lack of fair wages is contributing to that parent having to rush around and maybe not be able to always prioritize getting to school exactly the right time. And what the systems lens does is allow me to not place blame on anybody that I'm involved with. I'm not going to blame the parent because they're doing what they can in a hard situation. I'm not going to blame the kid because they're not in control of any of that. And it really draws my attention to, I guess, putting the problem in the right place so that I never see the humans I'm working with as the problem.

And so when I think about what teachers are dealing with today around how, you were saying how people going, oh, it feels different, it feels different. So this year I'm teaching in an afterschool kind of enrichment class one day a week with a fourth and fifth grade class and like all teachers, I'm finding it difficult. It's hard. And one thing that I'm experiencing is that challenge of holding that systems lens while at the same time being in the classroom. Because when you're in the middle of all of those kids being off the wall, it's really easy to go, what's wrong with that kid or what's wrong with me? Why am I failing in this moment? How do I get that kid to do what I need them to do? But every single week after class, I always just take a minute to sit and remind myself.

The past few years have been extremely hard. Our current world is extremely hard. These kids have had their childhood disrupted by all of this. Their families are doing the best they can. And so of course my class is chaotic sometimes. Why wouldn't it be chaotic sometimes? And so when I find a moment to really reconnect to that system lens, it again helps me go, I'm not going to blame myself. I'm not going to blame the kids. I'm going to recognize that this is just what's going on and we can all be more gentle with ourselves.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And I feel that every time an educator talks and speaks up and says what's wrong with me, it becomes a little bit of self blame and a lot of self-doubt too, I used to be pretty confident I used to be able to do the things I do, and now everything's changed. And so I love what you said about just being able to think about it, get away from the chaos just for a second, and not make it about you because we tend to be so hard on ourselves, anyone in working in education. But when you think about it from a system lens too, sometimes it can be like, well, gosh, what can I do? It's the system.

I'm just an educator, or I'm just a person working in EdTech or school leader of one district. How can I make a difference system wide? And I love that it's embedded into every part of the book, but it's all about where can you start? What can you do in an empowering way? And I'd love for you to talk about, I know this is a lot because it's embedded in your entire book, but if I'm an educator and even if I'm an EdTech professional, where do we start when this system is exhibiting these signs?

Alex Shevrin Venet:

I get that question a lot because even though I give a lot of starting points in the book, I think it just is overwhelming to think about all these changes that need to happen. And so one thing I often say to teachers is just start anywhere. But more specifically, I encourage folks to think about what is in their realm of influence. And so that might mean just the walls of your classroom. I have influence over the experience that my students have while they're with me. And so maybe you pick up something like in the book I talk about care and sort of how we show care to students, how we uphold boundaries when we're with students who are having a hard time. And so maybe you decide that's all I can really influence and so I'm just going to start there and recognize that that might have ripple effects.

But a lot of teachers actually have influence over some larger areas like maybe you're on a committee or maybe you have a good relationship with a principal and you can drop them a note and ask a question about a policy that you're not sure about. Or maybe you can show up to a community group that is organizing for a change that would really help your students. Maybe there's a group that's organizing for paid family leave in your state, and that would probably really help your students out if their parents were able to have paid time to take care of them in early childhood. So maybe even though that's not necessarily something you immediately think of as teaching related, it can be just a way to step into your power and influence a little bit, even if you just take 30 seconds to send one of those autofilled emails to your congressperson about an issue that's impacting you.

And so part of that is really encouraging folks to remember that at the same time that we are not individually going to fix all of these systems issues. And it cannot be solely the responsibility of teachers. We can't put everything at the feet of teachers. At the same time as that we can do something and sometimes even just taking that moment to send the email or make a phone call or show up to an event like that, it reminds us of the power that we do have. And if trauma facilitates powerlessness, then stepping into some of our power to make change can be healing in a way. And that same type of thing can be really powerful with our students as well. And so that's one of the things I encourage.

I also, because folks have been so curious about this and I've been thinking a lot about school change and trauma informed education, I am working on a new book that is really focused on how we look at school change and how we go about the process of school change that is not only trying to reach an end point of being trauma informed, but actually allows us to practice being trauma informed and equity centered along the way. So I will hopefully have more news to share about that in the near future, but that's what I'm busy at work on lately.

Elana Leoni:

And I love how you phrased it, although it can feel disempowering because it's the system thing, focus on the small things, and sometimes we take it for granted all the things we're involved in and where we have influence, and sometimes it's not. It's just a mind shift. It's small little actions. And I know that you start out the book more so of really creating this foundation, but around the shifts we need to move from the schools of today to those that are fully trauma informed and equity centered. Do you want to just go over if we were looking at a school that was fully trauma informed and equity centered, I know I'm putting you on the spot around those four shifts in your book, but I felt like they were really powerful and grounding. You want to kind of go over, it also will help other people when they visit schools to say, wow, they're making that mind shift.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Yes. So one little asterisk output first is that I don't believe that there is such a thing as a fully trauma informed or equity centered school because it's sort of an ever moving goal that as the world shifts, then what it would look like shifts. And so I encourage people to think about there is no there there, there's no end point to get to. But that being said, I have these shifts to really look at how can we start the movement towards a more trauma informed and equity centered school. So one of the shifts is around a universal approach. And this is really looking at the idea that instead of seeing trauma as something that only some people are dealing with and then finding those students and giving interventions only to those students, instead, we're really transforming the entire school so that everyone receives equity center trauma informed education, and that there's not a barrier to that experience.

That story about my mom is an example of that where she probably would never have been identified as needing an intervention of any kind, but she needed the same types of supports as maybe students who were identified. And so really looking at how do we undo some of those barriers. The second shift is about thinking carefully about our role as educators and our relationships and moving from a place where we see ourselves as saviors of students impacted by trauma and instead to a place of seeing ourselves as working alongside those students in service of their own goals and coming to them from a place of unconditional positive regard, which is really the idea that we care about who students are and not what they do. So when we talk about students who are struggling with trauma, sometimes there's this vibe about, oh, those poor kids, we have to lift them out of their pain.

School is going to be this magic place that heals them, and it's not realistic and it's not sustainable. And ultimately it diminishes the agency of our students when we have that kind of mindset. And so when we are really equity centered and trauma informed, we're recognizing the inherent strengths and capacities of all of our students and their families and not falling into those deficit mindsets. The third shift is the idea that while those mindsets and things are important, we also need to really look at changing systems. And so rather than focusing just on how individual teachers in a school are implementing trauma informed practices, and again, putting it all at the feet of teachers, we're really looking at what is the school as a whole doing to change the whole environment? How are they shifting policy? How are they making sure that, the example I sometimes give is, if you were abducted by an alien tomorrow, would your school be any more trauma informed than when you started working there?

And if we haven't done work to influence policy or practice beyond our individual work, then it might not be. And when I talk about that shift in my book, I really address that part of the book to school leaders, again, to just really emphasize the idea that this is not just for individual teachers, right? Leaders and policy makers really have a responsibility here. And then the last shift is around seeing trauma as something that only... The last shift is about, not just seeing trauma as something that we can only be responsive or reactive to, but that we actually can use our position in the classroom to influence trauma.

And what I mean by that is that if we teach for justice, if we equip our students as democratic citizens, if we teach social-emotional learning, then our students are actually equipped to be people in the world who create less trauma, who are ready to help themselves on each other heal and to make positive changes and so to really see our classrooms as places where we can engage in that work, and I focus on those four shifts in my work, but there are so many others probably that are important. But I think especially around some of those orientations about systems versus individuals working alongside versus being a savior, I think those are things that people could kind of look for as they're interacting with teachers, schools, resources, and just do that assessment of is this really grounded in that strength space, justice space place, or is this kind of just another deficit framework?

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And I love the way you framed it around a continuum, everything's a continuum. It's not like, okay, you're an expert. Done. Check that off the box. I will say, when you were talking about those four shifts, it reminded me a lot about community and the work of building communities too. Because the first thing you need to know about communities is like, what are the characteristics you're looking for, you're striving for? And at what point in the continuum as the community grows, are they more present or more prioritized? So I would imagine when you're first endeavoring in this work, you wouldn't be like, I'm going to go out and change all the systems. You might want to start where you are exactly your words and build upon that. And once you get to a certain point, it might make sense to start doing more systems work and in the same community. It's like as you start growing, you actually go through a community life cycle, and there's certain actions that are more appropriate at times to help grow. So this is a really cool parallel I was bringing in while you were talking.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Yeah. And I really teach a graduate course for teachers about leading these types of change. And one of the things that I have them do is they pick an area that they want to make change in, and they're working on sort of an action plan, but one of the steps that they do as part of that process is they have to build relationship with someone who they think needs to be alongside them in that work. And so I require that because you can't go through change totally by yourself. And so I've had students really look at, okay, who's maybe someone who's aligned with me already in my school and they're going to be a great ally in this process. I also have had a teacher set up a meeting with someone who she thought was the least aligned with her and might be the most resistant to change.

And they spent their time really thinking about what they did have in common and where their values converged. I've had teachers also say, I'm not sure who's in my school, but there's this community group doing great work and I want to see how we might collaborate. And so that connection piece is just so, so important. And so that's another starting point I would recommend for teachers who aren't sure where to get started is who could I connect with? Because when we invest in those relationships and community, it's often pretty clear where we should go next or we now just have somebody else who is helping out. And when we build those out one by one, it makes a huge difference.

Elana Leoni:

And a lot of what we've been talking about is in the classroom from a educator perspective, but also a school leader perspective and that kind of continuum in between of influence. But we do have this ecosystem of EdTech within the ecosystem of education as a whole. And I'd love for you for us to just take time and recognize them because they're pervasive in every single part of education. And I'm wondering how they can be more of a supportive partner in recognizing this at times. And it could be how would they adjust their product or service if they were supportive, or what are the supportive things you'd like them to do if they could be advocates for system change, whatever it may be, I'd love your thoughts on this because it's fascinating, all the different stakeholders in education, but we all have a role to play.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

So one fun fact about me is that I used to be so deep into EdTech. I used to be a huge EdTech fan. I was EdTech Twitter, actually before I did my master's degree in education I took a couple of community college classes in different computer skills because I've always been a little bit interested in tech and devices or whatever. And at my little alternative school, I ended up sort of being a defacto tech person because we didn't have one. So I went back and took a couple classes so I could learn how to actually fix things instead of just Googling it all the time. So I've often been a big fan of EdTech. I'm prefacing with that because I'm about to be really critical of EdTech, and I want you to know that I care about you and that's why I'm holding you to account, EdTech people.

And so what I want to say about EdTech is that as I've gotten deeper into understanding the intersections of trauma and race and disability and oppression, one of the things that I have learned about and have become really interested in is the idea of how schools can enact power and control over students who are deemed as disruptive or outside of the norm. And how sometimes that power and control can then lead into those students being labeled or punished or pushed into the criminal legal system. If folks are interested in diving deeper into that, Dr. Subini Annamma has beautiful work on this. She has a book called The Pedagogy of Pathologization, where she talks about how students who are experiencing trauma or who are disabled and are students of color, her work specifically focuses on disabled girls of color, how often they are hyper surveilled, hyper labeled, and hyper punished, and how those things all influence each other.

And so this piece about surveillance, I've been thinking about a lot because when I get on marketing lists or I see things on Twitter about products that are marketed as being trauma-informed or SEL, and they sort of use these terms as buzzwords in their marketing. And sometimes these products are things that I think actually contribute to that hyper surveillance. So for example, an EdTech product that's supposed to be about supporting student behavior, but then the actual function that it serves is to kind of keep really granular track of every time that the student does something the teacher thinks is good or teacher thinks is bad, or even when the student goes to the bathroom and it crunches out all this data, I have grown really, really skeptical of how that data, especially if it's tied to an understanding of the student as experiencing trauma or social-emotional challenges or being disabled, how does that data then potentially facilitate them gaining an extra label that may or may not be helpful?

How does that data get used against them or how does it help them? Obviously tech does what people tell it to do and people do with that data what they will, but I think that EdTech companies need to be really thoughtful about are you helping create something that actually will be useful to those students who are most impacted or is this just another way of gathering data as a way of surveilling them of capturing every little tiny thing? And so I think that for EdTech companies, if you're thinking about how might it be trauma informed, really think about how are people impacted negatively by these types of technology? How is technology sometimes used in harmful ways? And this is really parallel to, in my book, I talk about teachers understanding how schools cause trauma, teachers understanding how they may have unintentionally traumatized students through discipline practices or curriculum.

And so it's the same thing in EdTech, right? How is what we're doing potentially harmful? And then really understanding what do the people most impacted actually want a need from us? I don't know if there's EdTech companies who are really talking and listening to, let's just use Dr. Annamma's focus demographic as an example, disabled girls of color, where are their voices in all of this? So yeah, I think I always get skeptical when I hear trauma informed and EdTech together. But that being said, like I said, if people are the ones telling tech what to do and doing what they will with tech, then there's also potential for positive things to come out of that and facilitating more connection and facilitating more care. So I would be excited to learn about things that we're doing that kind of work.

Elana Leoni:

And I'm processing everything you said because in this podcast I've been such a learner and I thank you for providing the wisdom and advice to so many of our audience. But when it comes to EdTech, I think when I interview a lot of educators, and then I also interview a lot of EdTech professionals on this show, I ask them what have they done that's helped them make sure their product impact isn't an unintentional consequence or how do they make sure that what they're developing is impactful in the way that they've hoped and almost in a co-creation way with educators and they all say, we need to listen more, please listen, listen to educators, listen, jump in and see how your product is actually being used. When I went back to school, I took a course in Lean Startup through Steve Blanks Lean Startup, and the first thing they say is, okay, here's your idea, but I want you to list all the unintended usage, the things that you wouldn't even think, here's the use, but here's how it could be used and how it could be used, you said, is fundamental.

Because now we have so much data at our fingertips, and it's what we do with that data and the labeling of children and how it may follow them grade to grade. That is a concern that I'd like to see EdTech at least acknowledge, because it's hard. It's a hard conversation to deal with, but I'd love them to have panels with educators and people like you to just say, hey, we realize that some of this is happening. We'd like to figure out how to move forward in a way that's safe and important for our learners and our students. But I mean, I guess listening and then also more co-creation and hitting it head on and not hiding from it, right?

Alex Shevrin Venet:

Yes. And that question that you said about the worst usage reminds me of, I quote Chris Lehman, who's a principal in Philadelphia. I quote his question, which I think about a lot, which is, "What's the worst consequence of your best idea?" And it's that same question. So, hey, we have this great idea for this app that allows students to do this, that, or the other thing. What's the potential worst consequence of that? And so another piece I think about connected to all of this is transparency. One of the effects of trauma is that it erodes trust. And sometimes in schools we aren't very transparent because we have this idea that students don't need to see how the sausage gets made of the school, and they don't need to be involved in all these things because we're the adults or whatever. And I think that, well, obviously we don't need to bug students down with every detail of the budget or whatever.

Students can be involved in way more than we give them credit for. And we also can just be transparent so that if a student or a family member, community member or a teacher wants to look more deeply into something, that they have that opportunity and it just creates that free flow of information. And so I think about that with EdTech as well, that transparency around how data is being used, transparency around how money is made off of an EdTech product, transparency around where that money goes, all those types of things can move folks just to a place of building more trust and so people can hold you accountable.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. And we are almost at the hour mark, and we could talk for hours and hours, so I appreciate you taking the time you have and when you have that new book out, I'd love to have you on as another guest too because I think that that's even a more actionable part at times too. It's like, okay, how do we do that system-wide change on the district leader side and recognizing that everyone has a part to play in this. One of the questions we ask in terms of a wrap up is really interesting and when I think about interviewing all the people we have, because in education and especially in your work too, it can be very challenging. We can have those days that we are like, I don't know how to deal with this one day and I feel so depleted. How do you on those days recharge and refuel? Are there something that you're reading or doing or watching or some habits you do that ultimately just say, okay, I'm ready for that next day.

Alex Shevrin Venet:

That's something I'm always working on. And as you can imagine, when your professional work involves reading about child trauma, you're in need of a lot of unwinding. And so I recently have started a new routine of, I used to eat breakfast in front of my computer and kind of get started right away in the morning. And I've been really trying to carve out time to just read novels while I'm eating breakfast. And that has been really lovely in the new year that I've started doing that. I like to read just sort of sci-fi or mysteries or just things that feel like a little bit of an escape to me.

So right now I'm reading the book A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and it's really great so far. So you can check that out. I also, I love TV and cooking reality competitions and so that's a good unwind. And then also I think whenever you do spend time learning about child trauma, you can lose your sense a little bit of the joy of childhood. And so when I get a chance to spend time with my nieces and nephews or with those students in my afterschool program, or just spend time having fun with kids, that's always really lovely as well.

Elana Leoni:

Nice. Well, Alex, tell our audience how they can get in touch with you. We will certainly put all of the resources that you've mentioned in the show notes, a link to your book, a link to a couple of other books that you mentioned in the talk, but if people were going to want to reach out to you or maybe continue this conversation, what's the best way for them?

Alex Shevrin Venet:

So my website is called Unconditional Learning. It's unconditionallearning.org and that has usually listing of events I have coming up, workshops and of course info about my book, my blog. We didn't talk about my blog much, but I pretty regularly will kind of take up a current topic or an interesting issue in the field and write about that. And so that's always available as well. And you can reach out to me through there. I'm also on social media and we can put all of my various social media links together in the show notes. But yeah, I just encourage people to reach out however you want. And I love to make book recommendations. And so feel free to check out on my Instagram. I often will post different books that I've been reading about equity and trauma informed education and so head there and pick one up.

Elana Leoni:

Awesome. Well, thank you again. I really appreciate your time and I have learned so much, even after reading your book, I've learned so much because we're kind of making the connections to community and ed tech and what has the pandemic done since you wrote this book and all of the things around that. So I appreciate your time today. For those of you listening, I know you're saying, gosh, Alex and Elana are talking about the show notes. Where are these show notes? They are at leoniconsultinggroup.com. So it's Leoni, L-E-O-N-I consulting group, two Gs, .com/ 42, because this is episode 42, which I'm really excited about. Because I think my friend Ross used to be over ASCD. He posted something on LinkedIn. He said, only 1% of podcasts get past episode 20. And I'm like, all right. Okay, we're doing something here. So 42 for us.

And thank you all for listening. We really appreciate your time and your willingness to become that lifelong learner. And what I hope you got from Alex in our conversation is, gosh, I never thought of that. Maybe it's just a small mind shift. And for EdTech, I'd love you to rewind what Alex said, how am I supporting? How am I being transparent and not shying away from all of these system changes that do affect you too? So thank you all for joining. We'll see you all next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.

Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsulting group.com/podcast for all show notes, links and freebies mentioned in each episode. And we always love friends so please connect with us on Twitter @leonigroup. If you enjoyed today's show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We'll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.