Carly Spina: As students grow in their language proficiency journey, it’s almost like that upside down triangle, that inverted triangle at the beginning, proficiency levels. It’s actually pretty narrow of an academic language demand to grow from, I don’t know, every state is a little bit different from a level one ish to a level two-ish or something like that.

But as students. Grow in their proficiency level and that triangle gets a little bit wider. It’s because that academic language demand increases to navigate grade level content.

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. Today we actually have a special guest on the podcast. Andrew is my colleague and is actually on every podcast. But in the background, Andrew’s the one who makes sure that the record button is hit and that we are actually getting guests on the podcast organized and scheduled.

And yeah, Andrew, say hi to our guest today. 

Andrew Brandt: Mandi, thank you so much for letting me join this. As Mandi mentioned, I’ve actually been behind the scenes since the very beginning. But this [00:01:00] guest today is a favorite of mine. And so I asked Mandi, I said, Hey, can I join the interview? And so it was a phenomenal, I had a lot of fun.

Thanks for letting me join. Carly was a treat 

Mandi Morris: man. Carly ended by talking about joy and creating space and time for joy, and I feel like she is just oozing energy and joy. This podcast left me feeling very energized and hopeful to have people like Carly in the ML space. How lucky are we to have these incredible advocates and thought leaders in the space that we get to work in?

Andrew Brandt: I mentioned on the episode, I, I almost felt like a therapy session. She brings so much talent in ML instruction and talks through some great strategies, but at the end of the day, really emphasize the importance of connecting with our students and also being able to connect with ourselves and be open and vulnerable and real with.

Our passion to serve language learners, but also the challenge and the frustration and the bad days that we will have to give ourselves some grace and just do the best we can. [00:02:00] 

Mandi Morris: So we’re not gonna spend any more time introing this because you wanna spend your time hearing from Carly. She was incredible.

Let’s head over to the conversation. 

Carly Spina is a veteran multilingual educator with degrees from North Park University and Concordia University River Forest. With nearly 20 years of experience, she now serves as a multilingual education specialist at the Illinois Resource Center supporting educators nationwide. Carly is also the award-winning author of Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners and igniting Real Change, equity and Advocacy in Action.

Carly, welcome to the ML Chat podcast. We are really looking forward to this conversation today.

Carly Spina: Thank you 

so much, Mandi. I’m so excited to be 

a part of this. 

Mandi Morris: So this is a rare moment. This doesn’t happen too often, but you were referred to us by Valentina Gonzalez, another author who is on the podcast who.

We had such a great conversation with her and she spoke so highly of you, Carly, and the impact that your book Moving Beyond has had for her [00:03:00] professionally and the work that she does. And we finished that podcast and thought, man, we’ve gotta connect with Carly. So I reached out to you from there, and the rest is history.

What’s the connection with Valentina? Did you guys discover each other through being authors or how did you guys connect? 

Carly Spina: It’s so funny. So Valentina is somebody in the field that I just absolutely adore and respect. She’s brilliant, but she’s also so kind. And I had been following her on social media for years when I was a multilingual educator.

And then we had chatted back and forth through, through socials here and there. And then eventually over the years we became friends because. We’re both very passionate about the students and families we serve. I was able to meet her several times in person at different conferences across the country, so it’s been wonderful.

She is just a brilliant mind and so kind and caring, and very passionate about multilingual students. 

That’s so neat. I love that. What a [00:04:00] fun connection. And it is neat at conferences when you have the opportunity to overlap with people. You’re like, I know you online or I know you from your book. And to see them in real life is fun and exciting.

Yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: It’s also fun to see how real they are. Like, like from a distance, you’re just like, wow, you are. And then you meet ’em and you’re like, first of all, you realize they’re real people that are doing great work. And then in the process you also realize that you’re there with them. I think there’s a little bit of like, I mean, not to say that they’re, they don’t have a lot of things that you may not add, but you realize we’re all just doing this work the best we can.

And then you also realize that they, they actually, a lot of times they, they admire you ’cause of the work you’re doing. And I think it’s a huge nod to the amazing work you’ve done. And the amazing work that all of our educators are doing is we all look up to others, but we also have people who look up to us for the great things.

We’re doing, 

Carly Spina: people will say, don’t meet your heroes. But I totally disagree. Every time from Valentina to like Dr. Carol Salva or Doina Sackman, or Dr. [00:05:00] Denise Furlong, any of these folks, I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m such a fan girl of their work. And I like stalk them online and I read all of their. Books and their blogs and all of these things, and then I’ll do that thing.

I’m like, I’ve been following you for a really long time, and I’m, I just wanted to say hello. But everyone in our field is just so kind and gracious, and like you said, everyone’s just coming with this passion, and I think that’s something that brings us all together and unites us. But it really like the multilingual education space.

It’s such a community that uplifts each other because there’s so much work to be done and there’s just, it’s just a community. It really is really. 

Andrew Brandt: We’re together. We’re all fighting the same fight in our own places, in our own ways, but it’s like we’re in this together, which is awesome, and I totally know what you mean.

And there’s a little bit of a shout out for an episode we have coming up in a few weeks. I was at WIDA and I spotted Jeff Weers and I was like, oh my gosh. And that’s Jeff. And so I kind of stick out to where I, I knew once he was done with [00:06:00] this conversation, I could talk to him and had that moment of your work has been so phenomenal and he was just so real.

Down to Earth and personal, and it was just a great conversation. I was like, Hey, do you want come on the podcast? I was like, yeah, let’s do it. So we got Jeff coming up. We’re gonna be doing that interview next week, and then it’ll be released probably about a month after this one. But yeah, same thing. Just a shout out to everybody that’s doing this work and passionate about serving language lens.

Mandi Morris: Yes, absolutely. So Carly, tell us some about the work that you’re doing now. So you’re supporting educators all across the country. You have these two books that you’ve written, which I can’t wait to dive into the book specifically, but tell us a little bit about what is your day to day and what is the work that you’re doing in the field right now?

Carly Spina: I have the coolest job on the planet right now. I always said that about teaching because teaching is one of those things where you can just bring in all your passions and interests and make ’em play and make ’em dance together. But I feel like this is [00:07:00] even more fun because I get a chance to be in a bunch of different classrooms at once now.

So I work full-time for a nonprofit, and while we do a lot of our work within Illinois. All over the place. So every day it looks a little bit different. Some days I can really work on like tool development, so if I have had something in my heart and in my mind of I really need to have a tool or a structure ready to go for some structured or a c opportunity.

Math, like I can have time dedicated to my schedule to really get that tool just right. And then when I’m working in schools or districts or I’m inside of a classroom or I’m having a conversation with a teacher, I could say, Hey, why don’t we try out this tool and see how it goes. It’s a really fun role because I feel like this is something I’m learning more and more every single day.

They always say the smartest person in the room is the room, and I get to be a part of a lot of different rooms and just. Being a sponge everywhere I go. So [00:08:00] some days we’re working with districts that are like, we’re doing technical assistance. So if the state comes into a school or a district and says, Hey, we’re doing some compliance monitoring.

Let’s see how you’re doing. When schools are found to be out of compliance in different areas, we’re one of the partner organizations so we can support schools into getting not only compliant, but also. Implementing best practices and doing all the good stuff that we wanna do for students and families and communities.

So there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of professional learning that we get to do. So I get to do webinars and in-person trainings. Sometimes districts will bring me out and do different like team level work or. Whole staff level work, and it ranges from anything under the sun, like underneath the multilingual umbrella, which is so cool because there’s so much to do within that umbrella.

Mandi Morris: That’s really exciting. So in the work that you’re doing with a lot of different school districts and you’re getting to practice with different tools and strategies, what [00:09:00] are some key things that keep popping up as needs from the school districts that you’re working with? Yeah. 

Carly Spina: So one need. I think that has been a bigger need, a growing need across, um, the country really is what do we do?

How do we best support newcomer students? There is almost a sense of like urgency and almost panic sometimes if there has been a, a school district that has never really. Served this particular student population. Sometimes there’s just like that o that sense of overwhelm from the teacher lens of Carly, where do I even start?

I don’t even know what to do. Should I just translate everything? And I’m like, hold on. So there’s a lot of things that we can do, right? So I think serving and supporting newcomers in any grade level, in any content area, I think that’s always been a pretty significant need. And it’s been growing.

Significantly in different pockets of the country. But also I’m having a lot more conversations [00:10:00] about supporting students who are at the higher proficiency levels because when I have conversations with those teachers, they start to have concerns. Maybe the student appears that they are plateauing.

Their language growth or development and I don’t know what to do to really help them stretch beyond where they currently are. I think those are two pretty significant needs that often come up in conversations or when people DM me on social media or email me. Those are two pretty big buckets that they wanna unpack together.

Mandi Morris: And when someone writes you for either of those buckets, I know the resources are gonna look different. So let’s lean in for a second. ’cause I feel like we. We talk a lot about newcomers and they’ve got some really specific needs in the secondary level. They’re gonna look different from elementary school, but let’s lean in for a second to that secondary student that’s been in the ML program for a long time, and the teacher’s saying, I think this student has plateaued.

I don’t know, [00:11:00] whatever your state language assessment cutoff score is, like they’ve been hovering in that. Same bar just below exit for three years in a row. What do I do? What is the advice that you give first? Where do you help teachers get started? Yeah, 

Carly Spina: so I think one thing that I’ll always point to first is almost like this teacher mindset.

So whether it’s the multilingual teacher reaching out, or maybe it’s the biology teacher in the science department who was like, I, I don’t know what I should be doing sometimes. And I re, I remember being told this explicitly back when I was getting my bachelor’s in education with an ESL endorsement.

They, I remember being explicitly told by folks, oh. Carly, don’t worry. As students grow in their languaging proficiency levels, they need way less supports because they’re at those higher levels. They’re reading the book or they’re writing sentences. They can write paragraphs or they won’t stop talking while I’m trying to teach [00:12:00] biology, so they need way less.

So we can just like remove all these layers of scaffolding, and I want us to be super mindful of that because. It. This kind of goes against that whole message as students grow in their language proficiency journey. It’s almost like that upside down triangle, that inverted triangle at the beginning, proficiency levels.

It’s actually pretty narrow of an academic language demand to grow from, I don’t know, every state is a little bit different from a level one-ish to a level two-ish or something like that. But as students grow in their proficiency level and that triangle gets a little bit wider, it’s because that academic language demand increases to navigate.

Grade level content in US History and biology and AP Psych and all of these different classes that our students are expected to navigate. And if the teacher mindset is, oh, they can read stuff, they can write stuff. Start talking all the time. If the mindset is saying, oh, we can [00:13:00] peel back here. We really wanna push and say, hold on, there’s actually more, right?

There’s some more intentionality that needs to go into supporting students at those higher proficiencies, and it really does need to move beyond just offering. More opportunities. I think one thing that I often talk about with teachers, especially at the secondary level, is they’ll say, oh, maybe the speaking domain, the kids just need more time to talk.

And I do agree. ’cause I think that happens less and less as kids grow and grade levels. I think they do have less opportunities to speak, but it has to move beyond a like a think pair share. Our students need to have structured opportunities to engage with academic languaging with different roles and different audiences because that will influence.

The vocabulary that they use, it’ll influence their sentence structure that they’re being expected to leverage in conversations. And that will always translate to [00:14:00] the writing domain as well. So if we, yeah, there’s a lot that we can unpack. 

Mandi Morris: I love that visual that you gave of the inverted funnel and thinking about how that.

Band of academic language just expands, and I taught sixth grade for many years, and when students transition from fifth grade to sixth grade, wow, there’s so much that changes in their school day. And they go from having like a single teacher that had, this is our vocabulary routine. This is how we tackle background, building background knowledge.

This is how we talk in partners. And then going to seven teachers in a day who have. Different methods of doing that, or maybe no methods of doing that because they love their content, but they don’t have the skills yet, right? To know how to support English learners. And that transition is so challenging for students and I think it has a lot to do with our students are transitioning into long-term English learners somewhere in that [00:15:00] sixth, seventh, eighth grade, and I think there’s something really pivotal that’s being missed and like how much.

The change in their school day is impacting their ability to really conquer that expanded content language and the depth of knowledge really increases in middle school compared to fifth grade. So you’ve got these like compounding things happening for a student and it’s really, it’s challenging. 

Carly Spina: It’s so challenging, even just to think of just the, the adolescent brain and all the things that are happening, even outside of language growth and development.

It’s a huge transition to make that move and to start to learn different. Teaching styles and how that looks, and even just navigating the school building and how to open a locker. There’s so many things, and again, like for our students who have been in our programs for a really long time, sometimes we have conversations around like motivation, and sometimes people will say to me, Carly, I [00:16:00] think that this student is unmotivated.

And I always wanna push on that a little bit, right? Because I think it’s just like you said. If students have been taking their annual language assessment every single year, and maybe this has been the language of the majority of their academic career, like their school career, and if they’re being told every single year that the way they language is still not good enough.

That does something right to a student’s linguistic identity and it shapes who am I as a speaker of about science, or who am I as a writer about math. And our students are gay, like in these age groups. They’re already. Grappling with identity and who they are as mathematicians and writers and things like that.

But when we’re adding on that additional layer of languaging and also like combat, combating that with teacher mindset of, oh, they don’t need as much support, when really they might need some more intentional support. There’s so many things at play at the same time. Very [00:17:00] difficult for students to navigate, but also for teachers to try to say, where do I start?

What do I do? 

Andrew Brandt: What a fun area to dive into. Now I’m curious. I wanna go back. You talked about your role right now, and I know some of our listeners are saying, that’s my dream job. I would love to do that. I wanna know, let’s go back to where did you get your start? Did you, from a young age, you’re like, Hey, I’m doing multilingual instruction.

Did you have this in the mind from the very beginning? Or where did your career begin? 

Carly Spina: So I grew up on the north side of Chicago and in my neighborhood we had every different language you could imagine. We had Russian, Tagalog, Spanish from Mexico City, Spanish from Puerto Rico. We had every language on the block, and so that was just always a part of like life and my upbringing and I didn’t really.

Call it out. It was just always there. It was just a part of life. I always knew that I wanted to be in education. I always, I’m gonna be a teacher. I was the kid on the block that was like, oh, we would grab our trapper keepers in the eighties and nineties and we’d ha I’d have worksheets for my [00:18:00] friends and we would play school.

Like I was that little girl. And so when I was in high school, we had a really great little program, like a child development program. We had an in-house preschool. So you could take classes as a sophomore and a junior in high school and you could work with our pre-K kids. And that was the, it was just so much fun.

It was so much fun. So when I went to college, I was like, I know I’m absolutely going into elementary education. So that was always the goal. Then when I started doing my student teaching, I started to see some things and notice some things and have, I had lots of wonderings about things, about how multilingual students were viewed, how they were supported, how maybe they weren’t supported.

And my social justice heart just lit on fire. And I said, okay, that’s, that’s the space in education that I need to be in. So. Outta college, I hopped into a multilingual educator role for third, fourth, and fifth grade, and it was so much fun. We had [00:19:00] over 70 different languages in that community, and so that was so much fun.

And then later on I moved into a third grade classroom teacher role in our bilingual program, which was really great. So it was an English, Spanish language program. So half of our day was spent in Spanish, half of our day was spent in English. And my students. For the most part were simultaneous bilingual learners, so they were doing all of their languaging in both languages, and it was so exciting and we had so much magic and fun in that classroom.

And the kids just taught me so much, and working with the family so closely was just like, it was just a wonderful space to be. 

Andrew Brandt: I love your energy and your enthusiasm and your excitement for this work. I think it’s phenomenal. One question I’ve got now, it sounds like from practically from birth, you are year enough to do this job, which is not the case for everybody, and some of our teachers are coming into this with a lot more hesitation, nervousness, apprehension.[00:20:00] 

What advice do you have for a new teacher who’s. Taken on a role that maybe they’re a little intimidated by? Yes. 

Carly Spina: I think we can embrace the vulnerability sometimes, I think generationally, I remember being taught like fake it till you make it. No, we don’t need to do that. We, nobody needs to fake it. The, the world has enough fakeness.

We can just be our authentic selves, and we need to find our people that are gonna be our uplifters. Like every, every field needs that. But I think the teaching community really needs that because this work is so hard. It really is. It’s very overwhelming. It’s very draining. And even veteran teachers struggle with different things.

Right. Plenty of things that I still struggle with. So I would say for folks who are new to the field, find your people and hold onto them tightly and ask for help all of the time. Because you might be surprised, right? You might go to somebody like a veteran teacher down the hallway and say, Hey, I’m really struggling with classroom management, or I’m really struggling with a homework routine that really fits well, [00:21:00] and they might say.

You know, I’m still struggling with that too, and that can sometimes be like the little breath of, okay, it’s not just me. Okay. I’m not doing something wrong. Right? These are things that we’re all going to continue to grow into, but if you can find somebody that’s gonna say, you know what? Let’s try this together.

We’re gonna dabble, we’re gonna make mistakes. Some of our lessons are going to Flo. That’s a part of the experience and we should embrace that, right? Because I think we learn more from our flops and our mess up sometimes than like the highlight reel of social media. So embracing those moments that don’t go as planned, everything we do is a step closer to what, where we wanna go.

And as long as we’re centering our students’ needs first and their identities first, everything else will fall into play, right? If the students know that they come into your space and they’re loved, you’re doing your job. If the kids are excited to come to you and have that time, that block of time with you, you’re doing a great job.

All of the other things are going to fall into place, but let your priority be honoring that, that space, and [00:22:00] creating that space for your students. 

Andrew Brandt: I love what you said, so many parts of what you said, but one part in particular, you talk about vulnerability and the ability to be okay with, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.

I’m not sure how I’m gonna get from here to there. And there’s no reason to fake it. The important thing is that we just have the courage to step forward and we have the courage to say, at times I’m struggling or I dunno what’s going on. And one thing that is awesome about this space, and this is a lesson I learned early in my career too, is.

When you’re in this space and so you raise your hand and say, I need help, or I’m struggling. You are surrounded by people in education that love helping and being able to do that in vulnerably does a few things. One, it creates a place for them to then serve you and say, Hey, can I help? The other thing it does for your students and jumping to your comment about students, your students wanna connect with an authentic you and them being able to see, Hey, my teacher’s real, and they can struggle.

They’ve got their own [00:23:00] deficiencies and fears makes it so you can do your job authentically and you can connect with them in that way that them inspires them to say, you know what? I can stick my neck out and try these hard words or talk in biology class in ways that terrify me. And that’s inspiring.

That’s what we’re here for. I love it. Carly, I love your energy. I think it’s phenomenal. I love how you channeled that in your answer. 

Carly Spina: Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mandi Morris: So Carly, you’ve got lots of passion about the work that you’ve been doing both in the classroom and now outside of directly being solely in charge of a classroom and you’re able to do a lot of, it sounds like push in work and coaching with teachers, which is bringing you a lot of joy.

How did all of that lead to your first book? And tell us a little bit about how you went from coaching, teaching, and then coaching and becoming an author. 

Carly Spina: Yes. So it was something that I’ve always wanted to do. The more like the deeper, I fell in love with the work [00:24:00] and my students and the families that I connected with.

I started to share more on social media just. Slowly at first and then more often as as time went on and I started to build my own little network of folks who are also doing this work. And I’d see them post something and say, oh, that’s a cool idea. I’m going to use it as is. Or, Hey, I’m gonna take this idea and it makes me think maybe I could put this different spin on it.

And so over the years, just sharing on social media led me to where I am now, which is a weird thing to say, but as. I became more comfortable sharing different things, even sharing like the mess ups of wow, today was really off. Or I just totally, I had big dreams for this unit and it just bombed. It did not go the way I wanted it to.

I would have more and more people who would reach out, and so then I started to write blogs, and so I’d have longer things and I’d start to say, oh, if. You know, if anyone’s interested in trying it, here’s the template I used. I’d feel [00:25:00] free to take it and change it up a little bit and make it your own and make it fit your vibe and all of those things.

And I’ve always been a super avid reader. Like I am a fan girl of so many folks in education and I have bookshelves full of different education books. And I started to realize, for me, I wanted, I would gravitate towards books that felt like it was. A friend talking with me rather than this is what you gotta do and if you’re not doing this, you’re doing it wrong, and all of these things.

And so I was like, I would love. Maybe one day, I don’t know, maybe one day to write and to just share my thoughts and ideas and I don’t know. I don’t know if this is gonna work and I don’t know if this is gonna be a thing. And I don’t know if anyone’s ever gonna read anything like this. And so I started to look around and then I had a great conversation with my first publisher and she’s, I would love to turn, help you turn this into a book.

And I was. Like floored. I had full on imposter syndrome of, I think she, she thinks I’m someone [00:26:00] else. She thinks I’m someone else. There’s no way. And then I just started getting it all on on different Google Docs and it over time became a book and it, it was exciting and I’m still like, still weird. Like I still sometimes struggle with saying I’m an author because that was never part of like my initial plan, but.

There it is now. Now it’s here. And it’s exciting to see that folks are reading it and enjoying it and connecting with it, because again, that wasn’t ever a part of my initial plans. 

Mandi Morris: Wow, that’s so neat. And not only have you published one book, but a second book, only two years later. So you, how do you fit writing into your life?

So you said you’ve got teenage kids, you’re working full-time. It sounds like you’re probably traveling for work as well. Some. And you’re also writing two books only two years apart release dates. So how are you doing that? 

Carly Spina: A lot of nights, a lot of weekends. And I have a wonderful support system. I really [00:27:00] do my, my husband’s fantastic and my kids are wonderful and I think it’s been.

I think it’s been helpful for me to be more honest of what my capacity is at different times, and I think it became, especially the second book, igniting Real Change. I think that helped me to be a little bit more mindful of what I was sharing with my own kids at home of, I’m really struggling today, or I might need to.

Try a few strategies to refocus myself, or I really need to manage my time and block out two hours on, on Sunday morning before everyone wakes up so that I can really just. Let my heart get into these things. So it, it was definitely a challenge. And even some of the topics within the second book, the first book certainly did have some moments too, but the second book brought a lot of tears because it pushed me to confront different moments of my career and different scenarios that I see so many [00:28:00] teachers facing and battling in, in their own spaces and places.

And so it was. A much more emotionally challenging piece to bring together over time. 

Andrew Brandt: I’d love to go there for a minute because think that’s an area we don’t spend a lot of time talking. Is that kind of that, whether it’s burnout or discouragement or just that our teachers love the work they’re doing, but there are days that are just dragging and they’re seasons, sometimes months, even years.

What advice do you give to a teacher who’s in that place? 

Carly Spina: In my first book, moving Beyond, I share a whole chapter about one of my biggest rock bottom moments, and it’s still so hard for me to even talk about. So even if I do a book study in a school district or with a group, I will warn people like I will probably cry talking about it just because it’s still, even though it the moment was so many years ago, 15, 17 years ago, it still feels so, so raw [00:29:00] sometimes.

And I think again, like. When we talk about the multilingual education space, there are so many of us who are they? We feel like we’re on an island, like maybe we’re the only one of our entire building, or maybe there’s a few of us in our building, but we’re only one of the grade level team or a department.

And so sometimes those expectations for advocacy. Feel very big and feel very heavy in addition to our regular to-do lists, which are pretty exhaustive anyway. And so sometimes we take on this additional role of, I see this change needs to take place, but nobody’s starting it. What should I be doing? And we take on this role, we.

Step into those shoes and we walk through our spaces and places, and we’re trying to make these big systems level changes happen overnight and they can’t. So for the folks who are listening to this, and maybe you’re going through a [00:30:00] season where you are, you feel like you’re continuing to ask the same questions over and over from the same people over and over again.

I want. Teachers and leaders to let themselves breathe and let themselves rest because I think that’s something we don’t, we don’t always say, I grew up with like hustle culture and you just gotta keep going and like the bootstrap thing, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and if you don’t do it, no one will do it.

That can sometimes be true. If you don’t do it, maybe no one else will. That might be true, but it can also exist with an and next to it. So maybe if you don’t start this, no one will. You can start it and you can ask for help. You can start it and seek support from leadership. You can start this and also take breaks.

You don’t have to sit at every table that has a battle. You don’t have to be at every single table. You don’t have to attend every single battle you can. Like [00:31:00] anytime you have a moment, and maybe it’s a moment in the hallway where teachers are walking by. And you say, could you say that one more time? I think I wanna know more about what you just said, or maybe it’s a comment that felt a little problematic to you about a student or a family that you serve.

Just sometimes those small moments have the biggest impact and we often don’t acknowledge that. So we don’t take stock of, you know what, that was a small win there because every time we have a small win that leads to greater change. Allowing ourselves to pause, allowing ourselves to say, you know what? I need to sit down right now.

I need to tap out so that somebody else can tap in. I can ask for help, and I can acknowledge the small moments of impact. Because again, those are often what shifts a system forward for those we serve. 

Andrew Brandt: I love that. And I wanna pause for a second and emphasize something that Carly said. Yes, Carly Spina.

Who is this? Phenomenal ML educator and who’s been passionate about this work from the [00:32:00] very beginning had her own rock bottom moment. And it sounds like it was more than just a day. And I think that’s important to give ourselves grace, that if you’re in that moment, like that’s okay. Embrace it like you’re human.

And yeah, we all wanna take on these giant, the work, the thing, and we feel it so deeply. ’cause we see how it impacts kids and so we’re fired up, but it’s like Superman trying to, we aren’t Superman, we can’t move. And to acknowledge those wins as we get ’em and acknowledge we’re human and be passionate about our work.

But I like how you phrased those two things can be true. We can be passionate, we can be committed. We can own the work, and we can accept the fact that we’re not invincible, we’re not perfect, and we’re not gonna do it at all in a day or a year. It takes time. I love that. 

Mandi Morris: I think there’s something baked into education that makes it really hard to give yourself space.

It’s like you’re in the classroom, you’re like, am I sick enough that I wanna make sub plans [00:33:00] because I’m gonna spend four hours tonight making sub plans. Or I could just go to work with a fever and the flu and have my head on my desk all day long, which actually is easier right now than making sub plans and like how.

Any careers are like that, where you just feel like you don’t actually have permission to take off. There was a time in my career that I had something going on in my life that felt important and meaningful, and I was talking to my principal about it at the time. I was like, I’m really struggling with this, and she was.

Oh my gosh, I thought you had cancer or something. This isn’t a big deal. And, but it was to me, and it was like, oh, wow. And so she didn’t feel in that moment, like what I was going through was important enough that I was saying like, I’m gonna take a day or two off because I need to. Process what happened to me and I decided, I was like, I’m playing board games with my kids because if I’m gonna be here, I’m playing board games all day [00:34:00] long with my kids.

And I pulled all of my board games off the shelf and we played Uno, we played Guess Who and whatever I had in the classroom. And it was so fun. My kids had a great day, and guess what? They were using all kinds of language in English that day and it was. Fun and it was engaging, interactive, and I sat with them and played games.

No one could beat me at Uno. So then they, and I realized it was, in hindsight, it was a moment where it was like I created space for myself in my classroom that I needed, I needed to have fun with my students. I needed to have permission that I can’t teach a lesson plan today because all I wanna do is cry.

’cause this thing happening in my life is really hard right now. But I could play Uno all day with my kids. That was great. But you’re right, we don’t always feel that as educators, that we can create the space that we need to give ourselves grace. 

Carly Spina: Yes, yes. And I feel like we’re often, like we’re overly empathetic towards those we serve and those we serve alongside.

[00:35:00] But we, again, we leave ourselves to the back burner and we say, I’ll take care of me last because I’m putting out fires or I’m doing this, or I know this one student is really struggling right now and I really need to be there for them. Or I know that this family’s enduring this hardship and I really need to make sure that I’m showing up and fighting for them.

But at the same time, if we are, we’re. Many times we’re dragging. We feel like we are like army crawling through quicksand sometimes. And I think those moments where we’re able to stop and say, you know what I’m gonna, I’m gonna let myself be a human being. Those are often the moments that like help restore, right?

Not only like our teacher heart. And our leading our leader hearts and our change agent hearts, but it helps our students to see, you know what, miss Espina really needed this today, and that’s gonna be a thing in life where everyone goes through seasons of hardship and challenge. It’s okay to pause and I think.

Particularly for, and I wrote about this in moving beyond, particularly for students who are within the multilingual [00:36:00] learner umbrella, students who are immigrants or they’re the sons and daughters and grandkids of immigrants. Many times those students in particular don’t get to see their adults resting or tending to their own need.

So the more that we can have that as a moment of honesty and saying, you know what class, like I, I’m feeling really tired. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night. Or I have something that’s big on my heart today. So what I really need from today is this. Or like we, we would do this thing when I taught third grade, we would call it a spina spa day, and we would bring in blankets, we’d move all the desks.

And we’d literally lay down on all these blankets. I brought in chopped up cucumbers so all the kids could choose if they wanted to use cucumbers for their eyes. We had infused like fruit water available and we played music and it was just 5, 10, 15 minutes, but the kids were like, wow, that was really great.

I think I’m gonna buy some [00:37:00] cucumbers for my mom this weekend. 

Andrew Brandt: Carol, I am loving this discussion. This feels like a therapy session and it’s. But I think it’s very relevant for the work we’re doing. And going back to your comment earlier about the value of connecting with our students, I think we need to remember that taking care of ourselves and our emotional and mental health, it is very important in creating that connection.

I had a Steven Thatcher principal, shout out to him. He’s a principal in Kent school district, shared something some time ago that always stuck with him and he said that and he, here he was talking to the tendency of teachers to use the weekend to prep lesson plans. He said A recharge teacher showing up with C-level lesson plans is gonna be better for students than a tired teacher showing up with a lesson plans.

’cause what kids connect with is they connect with you and the lesson plans are important, but take care of yourself. Take those days to play with your kids or to get cucumbers, and whether you’re doing that at home or maybe you’re bringing it to class, because modeling that with the kids is a life skill.

That you’re teaching [00:38:00] them and connecting at the same time and it’s, I’m loving this, Carly. Keep going. 

Mandi Morris: So Carly, tell us a little bit more about your second book. You mentioned earlier that it was. Harder emotionally for you to write this book. It sounds like you needed to go into some vulnerable spaces and I think a lot of educators we power through.

It’s a lot of very like task oriented. List oriented type A personalities and education and it’s okay. This might have been hard, but I don’t have time to unpack it. I’m moving on to the next thing. And it sounds like maybe what you did in this book was some. Personal and professional unpacking to be able to share the realness of education.

Tell us some about what, give us some examples, maybe even of what that second, how that showed up in your second book. Yes. 

Carly Spina: So in the second book, it really was focused on, it was part of a equity and social justice and education series under Rutledge. And so Paul Gorsky was, is the series editor and he is a, he calls himself a no fluff equity educator.

[00:39:00] So it’s, we wanna stretch out of what’s not just. Something that lives in our mission statement. It’s something that we do. And so when we talk about like really looking at ways to make our systems, our instruction, our processes, our protocols, more equitable for students, it made me pause and sit down and just face the reality of how much inequities.

Already are there. And so each chapter of the book goes into a different area. So there’s a whole section on like family engagement practices and what are schools doing currently and where might be some opportunities that we can ignite some real change. And so I was even reflecting on, as a parent myself, what are some things that.

I felt maybe some harm over the years. And again, perhaps the harm was very unintentional because sometimes we have that conversation of the difference between intent versus [00:40:00] impact of my intentions were good, my heart was in the right place. And while that can be true, we can also say, but the impact was that maybe I harmed this relationship, or I harmed an a moment.

I caused some distrust. To, to unfold in this conversation or whatever it might be in that parent engagement or the family engagement chapter. I was thinking about those moments as a parent where I felt like I didn’t have all the information I needed, and I’m trying to navigate between 18 different apps on a cell phone to try to piece together information.

And then I said, wait a minute, if I am struggling. With those things. As a parent, I also have to un like unpack and acknowledge the privileges that I have. So I’m a parent that I have English language privilege. Not everyone in my community has that. So if I have English language privilege and I’m still struggling to follow all the directions from all the different apps that I’m expected to use [00:41:00] regularly, in addition to working full-time and being a mom and all the other things, what might that be like?

For folks who don’t have English language privilege, I also have digital literacy privilege. Not everyone in my community has that. So I know how to download an app, and I use an email address pretty much every single day for work purposes, right? And I’m navigating between different inboxes all the time.

But if I have a teammate or a neighbor down the street who doesn’t have. Digital literacy privilege that is going to impact their ability to access information. And so it helped, like having all of these ongoing reflections helped me kind of shape how do we have these conversations? Because sometimes people will hear the word privilege and they’ll say, cover their ears and say, ah, because it sounds like a scary conversation.

Having a privilege doesn’t mean I didn’t work hard for stuff. That’s not what that means at all. But it does afford me different advantages that might not [00:42:00] be available to everybody in my community. So having helping other teachers and leaders have conversations about just acknowledging what are the privileges that sometimes are assumed when we talk about family engagement, because I think sometimes what happened, and I shared it in the first book too.

And maybe you all have seen this too, of moments where teachers have said to me over the years, Carly, your student or your families are not involved. And they’ll say that with a period at the end as a characteristic, as a character trait, they are not involved. And that always like made my heart stop in my chest a little bit and I’d say, what do you mean by that?

Tell me a little bit more. And when folks say that they typically mean, oh, it’s ’cause they, they didn’t attend the parent-teacher conference. And I’m like, what was. The communication about it was the communication sent through email. Only in English, or was it made available across multiple platforms in multiple languages, [00:43:00] and did we equip everybody with the right information so that they know what they’re walking into?

Because there’s a lot of things that go into family engagement outside of an event and an invitation. There’s a whole lot more that we can unpack there. 

Mandi Morris: Man, I love how you break that down and even talking about. The different types of privilege. It’s Monday, I went to pick my kids up from school. My son hops in the car and I was like, where’s Eloise?

And he was like, at soccer practice. There’s soccer practice today. He’s like, yeah. How did you not know that? I was like, I don’t, I didn’t get anything. And I get home and I check an email went out at 11:00 AM I was like, that’s great for people not working full-time. I was in meetings all day. I didn’t see, so then I’m scrambling, but I can’t pick her up an hour later because I’m going straight home to another meeting.

So now who’s picking Eloise up from soccer practice And I have the privileges you talked about. I am. Very, I have digital [00:44:00] literacy. I, everything’s coming in English I, but there are three apps and 25 emails a day, and it feels that way. And as two parents working full-time managing that is so challenging.

And I love how you frame that because I feel. Every educator who is a parent can relate with that. It doesn’t ma, they can then understand, oh wow, you’re right. We need to be more thoughtful about how does communication go home? When, what frequency? Do we have to have seven teachers emailing? Or could there be like.

A digital bulletin board or something where this information is collected together. There’s creative ways of approaching that really would benefit all families in addition to families that have multiple languages at home. I just appreciate these practical pieces and how you unpack them. ’cause I feel like it brings down some barriers where people might feel resistant to.

Don’t poke at me where you’re like, let’s be curious. Let’s stay open-minded. [00:45:00] 

Andrew Brandt: So I wanna take this someplace real quick ’cause I think you are absolutely right. I also think that it’s easy to hear this and think I don’t have the capacity to manage all of that because it’s what we’re talking about I think is real.

But now we’re asking teachers to, okay, now we gotta figure out a new communication process. Gotta make sure you’re doing it in all these different modes, different languages. Make sure it’s practic far enough in advance. And that’s an overwhelming feeling. How do you, what do you say to a teacher who now is okay, I get the privilege, I get that I, that, that everybody needs their own method, but I can’t do all of that.

So what do you say, Charlie? 

Carly Spina: So, a few different things. So one of the things that I remember being taught as like a baby teacher was like, you should send home, you should, you should send home a weekly newsletter. This again, was an elementary setting, and they said. Send home a weekly newsletter that says everything that you’re learning.

And then so I was like, okay, so I’d spend all of this time creating this like long newsletter of all these different [00:46:00] blurbs of this is what we’re doing in science this week, and this is what we’re doing in ELA. And I’d spend so much time and then I realized again, as a mom. When I would get these newsletters, I know how long it takes to write these things, and I know the amount of like attention and care that went into it, but I don’t always read them.

That doesn’t mean I don’t value education. That doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids. That just means life is really busy. Life is really hectic. And so then I started to shift it a little bit and I said, what if, what if I said, instead of doing like a weekly newsletter that’s packed with all these different things, what if I had my students.

Co-construct the newsletter with me during class as like a literacy practice. So number one, we’re reinforcing all of like our key ideas of learning from the week. And this is definitely applicable to secondary ’cause that’s a different conversation too, as students age, as students grow in grade levels, the more the less and less family stuff, right?

The family [00:47:00] communication drops out a little bit. And I’ve had secondary teachers do this as a practice too, just using their own platforms. We have students say, okay, at the end of the week we’re gonna share this one sentence summary of the stuff we’ve been learning. And then every now and then we would also add like an image of this is the setup of the science thing that we were doing.

And we would share that instead. If I’m just sending home one sentence a week with an image or a short video clip of something. That does a few different things. Number one is the teacher. It frees me up a little bit as like mental load and tasks that, that I have to do. Number two, it empowers my students, and number three, it actually strengthens communication home by a million percent because if I have, let’s say, two teenagers at home and I get a one sentence.

Statement or even a newsletter, and I ask my stu or I ask my own kids like, wow, you, it sounds like you did this cool thing this week in your ELA class. Tell me about it. [00:48:00] They’ll say, I don’t know. I don’t know. And that’s literally the conversation, right? If you’re a parent of a middle schooler or high schooler, you know the the thing, right?

The routine. But if I have a picture or a video clip and I hold that up to my teenager and I say, tell me about this. The conversation changes entirely. It gives me a little bit more of an insight of what actually went down in class and it makes me excited ’cause I wasn’t there. I don’t get to be a part of that learning every day, but now I get a little window inside the classroom.

So that’s a small move that HA can have such big impact. Again, from time management, but also empowerment for the students and family engagement too. 

Andrew Brandt: Wow. That is a really tangible reel. Awesome example. I wanna share a little bit of what I’ve heard. One is when you have that moment of, okay, I’m overwhelmed by this, pause for a minute, and recognize what you’re tackling is something that teachers and across the country are tackling.

So ask for help. Just raise your hand and be like, Hey, how are you doing this? [00:49:00] The second thing that I heard that said was phenomenal is you’re shifting the work to the students, which is doing two things. One, it’s lightening your load, but it’s creating an opportunity for a real world practical practice.

For them to use their language and then they’re also. Learning, like we’re being reminded of, Hey, what’s coming up and what have we learned? And then creating that connection. Hey, that was phenomenal example. I love that, Carly. 

Mandi Morris: So Carly, what’s next for you? You love your job that you’re in, you’re enjoying your work.

Are there conferences that you’ll be at this year? If people hear this podcast and they’re like. Going back to where we started, I’m a fan girl and I wanna meet Carly in person. Where do they find you? How do people connect? It sounds like you’re really active on social, so how, what’s the best way for people to either meet you in person or just get connected?

’cause they’re excited about the work that you’re doing. 

Carly Spina: Yeah, I am. I love, love, love connecting with people on social media. I think that’s probably the easiest way for folks to reach out to me because we’re all there. We’re all, we use social [00:50:00] media for different purposes and we sometimes we just use it to connect with our own friends and family, but I use it as professional learning many times because it helps me get into other people’s classrooms.

See different ideas in action. So DMing on socials is a great way. So I am on TikTok and at Miss Espina class, I am on Instagram at Education Barbie, which totally started as a joke because I’m always wearing pink. And my friends were like, you need to do this. But I do a lot of different conferences. I’m really excited to be at Multilingual Illinois later this month in December, and I’ll be keynoting that.

I also have a few scheduled for spring and different places and spaces. I’ll be at the Michigan Mabe Conference, which I’m very excited about, but I do a whole lot of stuff online too. If you follow the Illinois Resource Center on socials, you’ll see a lot of our offerings, but I do a whole lot of.

Virtual and in-person workshops that are [00:51:00] free for educators and leaders. So that’s a really fun way to, to stay connected as well. 

Mandi Morris: And Carly, if you have, let’s say someone like me who is not very active on social media, and I’ll, I’ll get into LinkedIn for professional to connect and to read and see if you are posting, and then I’ll fall out.

Social media does not fill my bucket, but it definitely has some great strengths. Where would you recommend people start? Because when you said, I can get into people’s classrooms and I have seen some really cool stuff that teachers post and I’m like, oh man, maybe I really do need to invest some time to, because that brings me joy.

So if people are like, okay, I cannot spend a lot of time on social media, but I do want to be energized by what other people are doing in their classrooms. Where’s the best place to start? Like where are teachers most active right now and they’re sharing best practices? 

Carly Spina: So it’s so interesting because I think a lot of it is still very generational.

So folks who are my age, I was born in the eighties, so I am dabble in a lot of them, but Facebook [00:52:00] groups are still very active place to be. So even if you say, I use my Facebook so that I can post pictures of my kids and what they’re up to and life updates and things like that, join just one Facebook group.

Valentina has a very fantastic Facebook group advocating for ELs, and that’s a wonderful place to start because even if you don’t post anything yourself, just being a part of that community, you can search in different Facebook groups for different topics. If you’re like, oh, I need some newcomer stuff, type into the that group face, like the group search bar newcomer or newcomer for first grade, newcomer for seniors, and you’ll see all these different posts that pop up just being a lurker.

It’s a great place to begin and then you’ll start to see some familiar names of people who post frequently and you might say, you know what? I might need to DM this person and, and go a little bit deeper and start up a friendship. I think sometimes some of the best friendships start from, from social media sometimes, so starting small and finding the platform that [00:53:00] works really best for you.

I have friends who say, no, like I’m a millennial, but I’m not going on Facebook. I like Instagram because it’s very visual. See the thing right there. I don’t need to read a whole narrative or I like TikTok better ’cause they’re short little videos and I can watch what the tool is or where to find it or how they use it.

But exploring a little bit dabble. You don’t have to join all of ’em. In fact, you pro, we probably shouldn’t be on all of them all the time, but starting small and just saying, I’m gonna follow. Two or three teachers and just see what it does to your algorithm because then that can ignite some other doors and opportunities there.

Mandi Morris: That’s great advice and it is, we’ve heard over and over again with Gus on the podcast, so many people feel like singleton’s in our niche part of education in the ML space and social media groups, whatever, whether it’s. TikTok or Facebook or anything in between have spoken about how empowering it has been to connect with the community, to learn from others, to connect with authors.

So there [00:54:00] is a huge value to reaching outside of your little circle, right? Your own school building or your district. So. Thank you so much. This has just been an incredible conversation. I feel so energized and excited by this conversation today and just really inspired about the joy that you bring to your work.

Thank you so much for being here. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah, this has been phenomenal. Carly, I, one of my biggest takeaways, and I think people listening can feel Carly’s energy, and I think it’s important to remember that Carly brings this awesome energy. But I think Carly, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think part of the reason why you can bring such passion and energy is because you give yourself permission to have off days, to have lessons, to backfire, to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and to just be real.

And I think that then gives you the ability to just show up vulnerably and be passionate knowing that whatever comes, you’ll roll with it. And I think that’s just such a great, a great message to remember for each of us and the work we do is let’s be passionate about what we do, but give ourselves grace for what we can’t for the days where we [00:55:00] struggle.

Carly Spina: Absolutely. Thank you both so much for having me. I really appreciate it. 

Mandi Morris: Have a great day. Thanks 

Carly.