Dr. Lisa Auslander: [00:00:00] It’s really taken for granted what good teachers give to the field and to their students. I had a, a school leader I worked with once say, “The most important product that comes out of our work is the people.” And it’s about we’re building and supporting people to grow and thrive. 

Mandi Morris: Hi, welcome to the ML Chat Podcast.

I’m Mandi Morris, your host. Here with my co-host, Andrew Brandt. Today we had an incredible and inspiring conversation with Dr. Lisa Auslander. 

Andrew Brandt: That was a lot of fun. And for those listening who don’t know, who is Lisa Auslander? What’s her background? 

Mandi Morris: Lisa has done amazing and important work in the world of SIF and SLIFE.

She is the project director and principal investigator of Bridges to Academic Success. She’s the co-author of Schoolwide Systems for Multilingual Learner Success: A Roadmap for Leaders, and has just been really important in the field of SIF and SLIFE learning. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah. No, absolutely. She also happens to have been our first guest on the ML Chat Podcast back in February of 2023.

That’s right, it’s been [00:01:00] over three years. So it’s fun to have her back. Just the conversations and how she approaches this work is really inspiring. 

Mandi Morris: I love this conversation today, feeling very filled up and energized, and I know that everyone is really gonna enjoy this time to sit and feel like they’re just part of a conversation with Dr.

Lisa. 

Andrew Brandt: In addition to all the work she’s done around SIF and SLIFE, I love just hearing how she approaches both the people she works with, the teams, as well as how she focuses on building students as the amazing people that they are and are growing to be. And just that relational component was really energizing.

Mandi Morris: Absolutely. All right, Andrew, let’s go. 

Andrew Brandt: Let’s go. 

Mandi Morris: Today our guest is Dr. Lisa Auslander. We are so looking forward to this conversation. Welcome to the podcast, and thank you for being here again. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Andrew Brandt: This is a fun one because Lisa was actually our first ML Chat podcast guest going back to February of 2023.

We had done our first four episodes as [00:02:00] a dual kind of interview between Justin and Tim, our original hosts, and then we said, “Hey, let’s get real people,” and Lisa was top of the list. And it was a great podcast back then, and we thought, “You know what? We gotta have her back again.” So Lisa, we are looking forward to this conversation.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Thank you, Andrew. It was so fun last time. I’m so glad to be back. 

Mandi Morris: Lisa, I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation. I was in training with you years ago. Our common denominator is also Tim. So he was a colleague of mine when I worked in Oregon, and I saw you at a conference recently and was like, “Ah, this is so cool to see you in real life.”

That was a virtual training, like back when virtual tr- everyone was like, “How do we do this thing? How do we do professional learning online?” Now it’s so embedded in what we do. But I’d love to just catch up. What has your work looked like, and what is your focus right now? I’m so excited to learn from you today and just really dive into the world of all the siphon slyfe work that you’re doing.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Thank you. Yeah, it was so great to see you at the conference too, and just to… That energy there [00:03:00] was great. I have been doing so many things with my team and learning so many things new over the past three years, I can’t even begin to tell you. Last time we spoke, we were just beginning to– We had a small grant to just begin design of a newcomer program outside, like a more national program.

So over the past 10 years, we’ve been privileged, I’ve been privileged, and my team has been privileged to work with New York State, and we’ve been working with New York State for over a decade. It’s been so amazing. I love that work. It’s our core work. And as a result, people would often reach out from other states and say, “Hey, do you have any resources that we could use?”

And we really didn’t, because those were really for New York State and designed for them. So we had a little funding, very small amount of funding that we got to design a unit of study for newcomer students and for teachers to use in their classrooms, and it just– We started really small with a couple of districts, and we started to design, and we came out with a full curriculum two years ago, and we’ve just been piloting it.

Eval- did a [00:04:00] research and evaluation of the program, and we’ve been working with 16 districts across the country. And so it’s grown in ways that I– What has been so inspiring to me is that we– it was an idea, it was a suggestion that a lot of people would just email us like, “Oh, we have s- students who need support.

We don’t have the right resources. Could you help us?” And we were like, “What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for all the funding to c- Are we– What are, what is it that we’re actually waiting for?” So we started small, and then we s- we branched out and we created this program. And I have to say it’s been an amazing addition and sort of complementary learning experience to work with all these different teachers in different contexts in other states.

We particularly have worked with eight of the districts have been in Massachusetts, so we’ve gotten to have a real experience in Massachusetts with some districts. The teachers took off with it. We have a video, in the first year of the pilot, we have a video from a class in Waltham from two teachers that just really are amazing educators who really care so deeply about their students.

[00:05:00] And we had, we were lucky enough that the state was willing to produce a video that, with funding they had, and it showcases a lot of things that teachers are doing, but it’s also using our program. And I just feel that this three years have e- developed and helped me understand better what our newcomers need, what our teachers need, how we can be better at what we do in developing curriculum and professional learning, and taking the systems-based approach to developing those kinds of resources.

I have found more and more how meaningful that is. So deeply meaningful to edu- you know, education and curriculum, like textbook companies have their place and that’s amazing, and I feel like we’re privileged that we have this other approach as, as a small company group to do something different and offer this kind of continuous, this curriculum that includes continuous improvement based on feedback from educators.

And so that rapport and like using that feedback to improve programming has been amazing. And so like I, I just never dreamed this would happen. So it’s been [00:06:00] a real journey and I feel like we’ve all, the team, my team, the people that we work with, we’ve all learned so much. And yeah, so that’s been our project right now.

And we’re continuing to figure it out. As the climate changes and our students have challenges and our field has challenges, we’re trying to figure out how we can support people more meaningfully. 

Mandi Morris: I’d love to go back a little bit because I think there’s a whole history here of why you are and were uniquely positioned with the right experience and the right background to do this work.

And SEIF and SLIFE, especially in secondary, right? When you’re thinking like high school in particular, like we, we’ve had those conversations here on the podcast too with others. Mm. Like this is such a need that teachers feel and don’t often feel resourced to address. So take us back a little bit and talk about all of the work that you’ve done in New York and how that just really positioned you to be the right person with your team to, to take on this challenge.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Yeah, I’d love to talk about that. My predecessor, Dr. [00:07:00] Elaine Klein, and her colleagues, and some other wonderful staff people who were brilliant, the founders of the program, developed an original set of materials that New York State needed to based on the research that Elaine and some other colleagues developed and wrote in the field.

And that whole project started like work with New York State. New York State was like, “We need this. We need resources.” So the team originally developed a curriculum, but at some point I got brought in because I have a lot of curriculum development and I worked in D- or I don’t know, New York City Department of Ed for maybe 15 years, and I worked at all levels, and I’ve always built curriculum both like individually but also with teams, which kind of uniquely positioned me to help them.

At the time, they had some really brilliant material, but just help scale it, develop it more clearly, coherently so it could be implemented in the field and that teachers could use it more easily. And that was my job was, “Okay, you guys have developed this brilliant thing. I wanna help iterate on it, make it better, improve it.”

create a process for [00:08:00] continuous improvement with you, and also get it disseminated. And so I think eventually, obviously the staff changed, the founders left. I– New York State still wanted the resources and wanted to scale it, and so what started as one or two programs has now become five programs in New York State that we develop all curriculum.

Originally it was First Life, which are students with limited or informal and interrupted education. Not every state has a policy that acknowledges and supports our SLIFE and SIFE students, which has been such a brilliant thing that New York State has done for so long. That’s why we were allowed to i-innovate and do something that would support our students.

And I think that they were, they were groundbreaking in doing that, ’cause a lot of states weren’t. And so because there was that funding and that our project was able to develop, I think we were able to build on that, and that’s what we’ve done. And so now in addition, of course, that original curriculum has been transformed in a lot of ways, also based on the science of reading, ev- also all of our research and [00:09:00] evaluation that we do.

We are also at a university, so our project is uniquely positioned because we’re in a university. We’re part of CUNY, which is the City University of New York, for those of you who don’t know. But it’s at the graduate center there, and we do– we’re very– I’m a former teacher and administrator, but I’m also a researcher, and m- it’s been really important to me that we have research and evaluation, and especially getting feedback from our teachers, our students, having student outcome data to inform how we do development.

That’s been a really important part of what we do, and that’s the work that we’ve been allowed to do in New York State, and build a community as well in New York State around these resources. But also to help each other learn, help our stakeholders learn from each other. And I think that has been– we’ve built an amazing community because of the work pe- the, not only the work that people do, but the caring they have for their SLIFE and newcomer students.

And one of the ways that we’ve changed the way we do things since the origins of our work is a lot of, from our research and evaluation and talking to schools and districts and [00:10:00] district leaders, is that having a, a curriculum or programs that targets SLIFE alone was not always useful. Like some schools, especially now as in, in the climate we’re in where there’s a lot more challenges, there’s less time, there’s less personnel, like we need to find ways to serve a ri- a wider variety of students in the class.

So we have recently some of the changes we’ve made are to differentiate our resources for SLIFE and newcomers all the way up to sixth grade home language, and that is a huge range of students. But that is the reality of what our teachers have in their classrooms in terms of population, so. 

Mandi Morris: I think something worth pointing out here that’s really unique about where you’re positioned to do this work, you mentioned earlier like there’s a place, right, for a big curriculum and there’s a place it serves a function within the classroom with- in K-12 education.

But what’s so unique about the work that you’re doing is that you’re able to be really agile in [00:11:00] the work and responsive in the work. And when you have these huge sets of curriculum that are 500 pages long, and when you purchase them, like you’re purchasing them for a decade because of the cost- 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: That’s right

Mandi Morris: put into them. And what you’re able to do is this like w- quicker adapting to the needs. You just spoke to it right then, that hey, right now we’re in a moment where if funding is cau- cut, personnel is cut, the classroom can change from one year to the next. And through your research cycles, you’re able to take that feedback and immediately implement it into the resources.

I, I think that’s something really special about what you’re doing in your work. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Thank you. That means a lot, Manny. I really– I– It’s very inspiring to be able to do it this way because you are in the field seeing what teachers is- are doing, what they’re doing with their students. You can build on the innovation that’s happening in the fields.

You can give credit to teachers. You can bring their voice in. Having been a [00:12:00] teacher, I was involved in research when I was a teacher. I remember I was a teacher in a middle school in East New York many years ago, and just so like a researcher picked me to do an interview, and it was the beginning of that journey, oh, my voice matters, like what I’m doing matters, and I feel like that’s so important and often unacknowledged in our culture, just the role of teachers and what they do for their students and how they learn from their students.

And so I think for me, that actually touched me in a really deep way, and I feel like now it’s come full circle, and that’s something I try to do and bring into my own work. So it is exciting, and now we’re being pushed in new ways. For example, our program has been used really successfully, the Newcomer program, but a lot of t- teachers are saying, “We need level two, WIDA level two resources.

We need, our students are even more expand- we have a wider variety again in our class.” So we’re, now we’re iterating again. We’re gonna put in new texts, develop and put in new texts for the teachers to use over the summer, a couple of new texts, and also an additional unit of study that’s really [00:13:00] more, more focused on reading and writing and literacy skills for students who have more oral language but are still struggling around some of the literacy skills.

So we’re doing that, and that’s gonna be released in January for those teachers. So I do value that. I think it’s not an– I think it is different. I think it’s something that we can provide, that we can give, that complements what, what the other, what the districts are using. And yeah, I hope we can keep doing it.

That’s my hope. Yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: Mandy, I love that you bring that up because I think it’s true, though, whether it be in, in education or in the business world, whatever it is, there is a tendency that those that create the resources or the product often get separated from what’s being implemented and used. And I, and I can see also a little bit of behind the scenes where that lens comes from, ’cause that’s so near and dear to what we’re doing at Flashlight, to always staying really close to where things are getting used so that you can respond.

It is a unique opportunity because the way you’ve approached it in both the creation and the implementation and the responsiveness, that is relatively unique as [00:14:00] opposed to some of these maybe publishers or larger projects where you have a tendency to get removed. 

Mandi Morris: I’d love to 

Andrew Brandt: know, is there a moment or maybe an aha moment where you had created a resource or you had something and you were going and implementing it, or part of that process whereas it hit you like, “Oh wow, this needs to shift.

This needs to pivot,” or some sort of epiphany there that, that comes to mind? 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I think- Just being able to– I’m trying to think of a specific instance. I do think, I don’t know, we were in a school once and teachers were using our– It’s gonna sound a little boring maybe or not as, not as huge an epiphany as it felt at the time, but it’s like just little things sometimes, like teachers were using our materials, we’re observing.

And then when talking to them, a lot of– they were feeling like a lot of– they were having trouble getting through the first part of the lesson and getting into the real collaborative work that the students really need. And we just needed to rewrite some things and change the teacher guidance, and it really changed the dynamic of the lessons.

We needed to also– Part of our approach is doing, is not just like doing [00:15:00] materials or curriculum, it’s also that systems approach that we talked about last time, which is really about doing professional learning. We have something called office hours where we support teachers and their questions. And so we really believe in a systems-based framework, so it’s not just about, “Oh, here’s this,” I don’t know, “unit of study,” but h- it’s about like, how could you implement?

What are you working on? How is this working with this group int- of students in front of you right now? Which has tr- completely transformed, I think, the way I see curriculum, and also doing this research and evaluation as part of it. But in general, like that moment, it was like a mundane, small thing, but it was like, “Oh, yeah, of course.

We need to change the way this is written. We need to create some teacher guidance that will help teachers see how to make these connections.” And yeah, it did help. The teachers confirmed it. We triangulate that with some other observations, and then we– So sometimes it’s really small. It can be also, like, how they’re designed, w- you know, how teachers are navigating it.

We des- we read, we [00:16:00] digitize all of our resources. And teachers loved it, but then they were like, “Could we– we need to know what to print like in advance.” Like we– So like, just like very simple things sometimes, just like that we can move on and change and be– it’s transformative sometimes. 

Andrew Brandt: I– Recently, I’m on this kick of just the value of gathering data for the sake data itself.

And sometimes data is numbers, but a lot of times data is just perspectives. And what I’m hearing you say is what you have d- what you did is you just took an opportunity to step out from the kind of the creation of the resource lens and just go into the classroom and see how it’s being used. And in the process, you were able to gather a lot of data of, “Oh, wow, we had this assumption of how to be used.

The reality is it’s being used this way.” And immediately it’s, “Okay, now I know how we can shift this so it will be even more effective.” And I think it strikes at something that all of us and all of our listeners run into, where it can be easy to get in a position, whether we’re at the district office or in a role where we’re creating and forget, like, [00:17:00] the value of getting into the perspective of our teachers as well as our students.

And just seeing that perspective and just going and seeing how is this getting used, what’s actually happening at the ground level, and just going and observing. We gather a lot of data that immediately it’s like, “Oh, I know how to approach this differently because I’m watching it in action instead of just staying behind the scenes.”

Dr. Lisa Auslander: That’s so awesome. Definitely. Tea- students are our best teachers, right? Seeing what s- seeing what the students are doing with Whether it be with materials or an instructional strategy you’re trying out or– So they are the best teachers, definitely. And teachers are the best resource of infor- to provide that information and their lens into how to transform things in the classroom.

I think also though, teachers have a lot on their plate and are often– I know as a teacher, I always felt like I had a, you’re developing curriculum, you’re doing instruction. And so what, what’s been enjoyable too is just be able to take something off their plate so they can focus on the instruction.

‘Cause I feel as a teacher, you’re always expected to do a million things, and I think [00:18:00] just being able to take that off their plate and give them something that will be useful and allow them to spend the time with students is so key. But yeah, the data is invaluable. We have a research team that’s small, but we– And even I don’t know, last week we had one of the designers in on the NYSED team, Elsie, she is designing small group instruction lessons and working with a brilliant teacher in White Plains who’s just doing some really– She’s just really great, and immediately we’re design– this is a new thing, we’re designing these targeted lessons, and could immediately see what worked and what didn’t.

And then our research assistant or ma- research manager who does the work, she saw something innovative the teacher was doing, so she created a poster for her so the teacher can have the poster and use it. It’s just, I think what I’ve realized with all of this is that it’s about the people in the field who are constantly imagining and building spaces for multilingual learners to thrive in classrooms through instruction, through counseling programs, through implementing our work.

[00:19:00] Just seeing students improve their reading, build beautiful art projects, continue to learn language and build knowledge in their own language. Seeing what people build in schools and is very inspiring to us ’cause then we can innovate. We’re– it’s, so it’s very iterative to have that data that you’re describing and I’m, I think it’s really, it’s really important because some things just don’t work.

When you try them out, they don’t work, or they might work in one setting but not another. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah. I also love how you talk about your work and you talk about the community that’s around it. It’s not hey, here’s this thing we delivered or we created, but it’s like this community and this movement that is real and alive, and it’s the life of the work, not just a resource that can be used in a certain way, but it’s a group of people that are passionate about serving kids and figuring out how to constantly connect and relate and improve and adapt to, to serve them even better.

I love how you talk about them. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. I feel [00:20:00] like l- really lucky that we can do this. I don’t know. I don’t know, and I hope that– We definitely have had to pivot in the climate because teachers are going through a lot. Our students are struggling a lot. We have OELA that just got dissolved.

We have so many challenges in the educational landscape right now, and a lot of our work is just figuring out how we can serve schools better and listening and understanding what they need so that we can serve them better. So it is a great experience to be in this position. We’ll have to see How things continue to change and how we can continue to pivot.

Yep. 

Mandi Morris: Something that’s on my mind, and it’s been on my mind for the, the last maybe year or so as there have been shifts in education and funding and we’ve had a lot of teachers switching careers, or a lot of adults switching careers into education, like as a second or third career. You hear from some admins that are saying like, “I need [00:21:00] a sit and get experience because the teacher is so fresh and we don’t have funding for professional learning.

We don’t have funding to support that teacher with a coach. We just need something that’s very scripted, that’s very out of the box, so that any warm body in the room can do the work.” And I internally have this friction of educators are professionals and we have an obligation to provide the best student experience in the room.

How do we support teachers that are switching careers that are like, “I didn’t come from a four-year degree with education into this field”? What’s the balance of really wanting to challenge no matter when you’re coming into the field of education, this is a profession that requires professional learning, whether you’re finding that through a podcast or you’re finding it online or you’re finding it in a community, with this tension that some admin are feeling of, “I just need the thing out of the box.”

Have you been experiencing that some in your professional [00:22:00] development or in your interviews, and what are your thoughts around that? Like, how do we support teachers in every stage while still challenging people to push themselves as educators? 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: That’s a great question. It is really hard, and the profession is just more and more demanding in so many ways.

I think at least from our perspective, the way we do it is we try to script out as much as we can, and we try to put a lot of, in the materials themselves, as we move things like HQIM and, and trying to– We’re in a process in Massachusetts of being evaluated as HQIM or high quality instruction materials, because there is a movement, which I think is good because when I was teaching, it wasn’t so mu- You were writing a lot or you were just using that textbook, but HQIM was not a concept.

And I think it was hard because if you’re always writing, you can’t focu- like I was saying earlier, just focus on the instruction and learning how to do that well. Mm-hmm. Learning how to differentiate in your classroom is an art. Learning how to target and do small group instruction. So I think having– We’d also try to develop something [00:23:00] called fidelity indicators in our work of, in our curriculum resources to help guide teachers on what the non-negotiables are from our, based on our research in classrooms, so that they know like what things are going to be really important to keep in their practice and then what things are negotiable and what they can try out or use as a part of just who their, depending on who their students are.

So I think that does help, especially new teachers, but also expert teachers sometimes just have a framework. That’s one thing, and I think the professional learning, I will say we’ve done– The way we’ve pivoted is we do a lot of asynchronous and synchronous options so that a lot of times teachers don’t have time out of the cla- they can’t afford to leave their classroom or they can’t afford to get– the district can’t afford to get coverage.

So the way we responded is we created little mini courses of all of our professional learning so they can re- look at it any time and do– respond to the assessments and just have the experience of learning. And then we come in more as the coach. “Let me answer your [00:24:00] questions. Let’s dig into your problem of practice.”

And that allows teachers to be the expert, drive the ends of the conversation, talk about the gaps in their own learning, also what they’re, what they need help with, as opposed to always feeling like you need like hours and hours of sitting in front of us live or with us live. So we try to be like flexible ’cause some districts want different things depending on exactly what you’re describing, like the cuts or like how serious the cut.

One district just told me, “Oh, we lost our entire coaching team, so I can’t afford for you to do all the PL, the professional learning, but can you do some office hours for us?” And so we’re working on that as a potential plan, like some iteration of having the resources, but maybe some office hours so they can watch the learn- async learning on their own.

But that’s such a huge change for that district, like to lose all the adult learning support that we know the research shows that resources alone don’t, aren’t gonna do it. But that’s the reality, the political reality l- that we are living in. So I think [00:25:00] that’s gonna be a different plan for that district than another one where they maybe have more support still embedded.

So I think those are just some examples of how we’ve tried to find the balance you’re describing of giving guidance, giving support. Another thing that we do, and I think that a lot of districts do that I think is really important is when that, that saying about finding the bright spots and like teachers who are really excellent, who are leaders, encouraging intervisitation, and we bring in teacher leaders.

That’s one of the things we do. We give stipends sometimes when we can, and we try to bring in teacher leaders in the classroom to talk about their experiences. We tape them sometimes, like we just did it with a small group instruction to show, ’cause we’re designing those lessons because a lot of times people don’t know where to begin to do small group instruction.

You don’t get necessarily learn that even in a four-year program, but even when, especially if you’re not. So we’re scripting some small group instruction lessons so teachers know what to do and how to d- they can differentiate, but they have this, the material. And I think [00:26:00] teacher leaders are really important to, to leverage in the districts, and we, so we try to help from our pool of teachers that are really expert and innovate so that other people can learn from them.

You know, I learned from a lot. I’m sure you did too, Mandy. Learned from a lot of– There’s so many teachers I learned from when I was teaching, and even in all my roles. So I think, and also not to mention like school leaders, district leaders who are doing amazing things to support their schools, their families.

So I think just like a learner mindset too, organizationally is really important as we manage all these in- incredible shifts. Continuing to have the learner mindset 

Andrew Brandt: I love that, Lisa. One of the questions we’ll ask you later is around advice you’d have for a new teacher. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Wow. 

Andrew Brandt: Right now, what advice do you have for a teacher who’s been in their role for a bit and they’re feeling that itch of, “Hey, I wanna level up.

I wanna either take a leadership role in title,” or maybe it’s titleless and they just wanna, they wanna do their, the work they love even better. What advice do you have for them? [00:27:00] How do they take that on? 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Wow, that’s a heavy question. That’s a good que- really good question, Andrew. I think, I don’t know, I was a teacher leader and I worked with a lot of teacher leaders, and it can be very tempting to overdo it do you know what I mean?

Education is very demanding, and there’s a sort of expectation that you do it all that I find a little bit different than the corporate setting. The expectation that you do it all, whether you get paid or not, just you do it out of your heart. And I think just- You don’t always get formal training. Some districts do now, but there isn’t always formal training about what it means to be a leader, and I think that’s such a nebulous thing.

But like trying to get your own support system to become a leader if you’re already a le- or t- to move into that position of leader, whatever it is, whether it’s formal or not, whether you’re a department leader, you’re just somebody who’s amazing, doing amazing instruction. I think getting that support, figuring out your boundaries, like learning what it– listening to your own internal [00:28:00] voice.

I know these sound a little, I don’t know, not as serious, but I feel like it’s so important because teachers, it’s really taken for granted what teachers give, what good teachers give to the field and to their students, and how we’re– I had a, a school leader I worked with once say, “We’re not…” What did she say?

“We’re not built– We’re building– Like the most important product that comes out of our work is the people.” And it’s about build- we’re building and supporting people to grow and thrive. But it’s not what our culture always values or rewards. And it was so deeply impacted me that she said that. And that school is a school I was a teacher in that school, a teacher leader building a school.

We built a school, which is incredibly s- I can’t believe we built a school, but whatever. That was a huge milestone for me. It was so hard, and I learned so much in that process, and it was so important what she said, and I think you also tap into what your own needs are socially, emotionally. Understand your own boundaries.

Find mentors who will help you build the leadership [00:29:00] skills. Know what you don’t know. Be honest with yourself. Mm-hmm. I think that’s a hard thing to do, and it’s also not very popular in our cul- culture. But I think it’s so important because if you can own that, you can find somebody who does know and can help you- Mm-hmm

and can support you. So having a support system is a big part of staying in the field, I think, especially now. 

Andrew Brandt: I love that comment. When she made that about people, was she referring to the kids or the teachers? 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: That’s a good, that’s a good– She was referring to the kids. She would teach. She no longer is with us.

She passed several years ago. She was a very meaningful person in a lot of our lives. She was– But she meant the kids. But she, I think she inadvertently did it for us, right? Like she- Yeah … I don’t know. I think she, that was by design, but she did it for the teachers, too. She did a lot to pour into us, and I think I learned a lot as a leader from her, like what that looks like and why you do it.

And I think that she was just pointing to the, pointing to the fact that you can have someone with straight A’s who has bankrupt morals. She, we wanna, we wanna create an atmosphere where [00:30:00] we’re learning how to in- increase civic engagement, build citizens, make, help our students find their own personal journey, stuff like that.

So she was referring to the students, but I think she inadvertently or maybe intentionally did it for us. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah. No, a- and jumping also to something you said that I think is really profound, you mentioned knowing your own boundaries, and also mentioned the reality that teachers are working in a place that is doing good, but there’s also a strong expectation that like, “Oh, you should just give because it’s doing good.”

And if we’re not careful, we end up overextending. And it’s, and it’s not in a way that is, is productive because then we end up exhausting ourself. And I know as I’ve gone through my personal journey of understanding like, okay, where, what is really my passion and where are my boundaries? It’s taking that moment to say, “Okay, is this something I’m doing ’cause I feel like I should do it?”

And then the way that I can really recognize that is as I’m getting ready to do something, is it, okay, does this actually give me energy and excitement, or is there a little bit of dread in me of, “Oh, I feel like I should do this, but it’s [00:31:00] not energizing me”? And I think it’s finding the things that like we’re really passionate about and bring us life and aliveness, and being okay if You’re getting ready to do something and you’re like, “You know what?

Even though I feel like I should do this, I should want it, it drains me.” And that’s okay. And recognizing, okay, that’s me, that’s b- that’s my body saying, “There’s a boundary of, okay, I’m overextending myself in this moment.” And it, it’s definitely a journey in finding that balance because you’re right, teachers will always have that pressure natural because they’re surrounded by all these kids that have so much potential, and you just wanna give, but you only have so much capacity.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Definitely. That’s really true. I think, yeah, that’s profound, Andrew. That’s good. That’s good, that’s good stuff. 

Mandi Morris: It’s a hard boundary to find as an educator because unlike working in any space outside of the classroom, as adults in a lot of other jobs, we have a bit more permission to set those boundaries.

But when you’re in the classroom, that the [00:32:00] consequence of that boundary can feel like I’m not doing everything I can for this child who’s sitting in front of me who needs X, Y, or Z. And that puts so much pressure on the teacher, the adult in the classroom. In a conversation recently, a podcast recently, we were talking a lot about doing things that energize you as an educator and bring you joy, and this conversation is reminding me of that.

It’s like remembering that you have to find– The, the profession is hard. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: It is. Really hard. 

Mandi Morris: For any of us that have dedicated our careers to the profession, it is a hard profession. And if you can’t find moments of community as you keep going back to, Lisa, if you can’t find things that excite you and bring you joy, things with your students, things with your colleagues, you can try to put as many boundaries as possible in a field where it’s really hard to have those boundaries and stick with those boundaries.

But remembering to find [00:33:00] joy in the work that is really nuanced and really complicated, just to try to find space to fill your bucket back up. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Yeah. I know. I felt like doing student council was like that for me for a while ’cause I just had a lot of fun with the ki- it was fun as a teacher to do that. But I also felt like I needed to sleep a lot.

Like a Friday night I would just go to sleep. I was one of the, I never was a happy hour per- So everybody’s different. But yeah, it’s a hard profession. People don’t realize how demanding it is and it, how much skill is needed. I don’t think we really deeply understand that as a culture or acknowledge it.

And it takes a lot of skill and energy and time, and there’s not always the professional learning or support you need. Sometimes there is, sometimes there’s not. Depends. So there’s a lot. It’s a lot. So I love the idea of joy. I think joy is so important, and I think sometimes it can be hard to tap into what is that for me?

What does that look like? And you have good days and bad days. And I think in teaching it’s just more intense ’cause you’re working with a lot of these students and trying to tap into what they need. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the same is true for [00:34:00] leaders, yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: The reality is you’ve gotta put on your own oxygen mask first, and it’s, it goes against what we might think, but you’ve gotta be able to take care of yourself so you’re in the best place to take care of and show up for the students.

So on, and on that note, Lisa, what right now has got you the most excited? What’s the work that you’re like, “Ooh, when I wake up, this is like-” Almost like a Christmas morning where I’m like, “I love doing this.” 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I really like working with my team. I do enjoy that a lot. I’m a team person, and the– when I’ve l- been lucky enough to work with some like-minded people, are very mission-driven, and I really love that part of the work when we’re able to connect.

We do a lot of collaboration in the sense that we all go off and do independent work, but we do c- we do have a lot of working meetings where we’re in a, trying to brainstorm and innovate, and then create a plan for going out in the field. And I feel like I really enjoy working with a team. Mm. It can be a lot of work.

In some ways it can be, there are moments where we’re all like, “Okay, I’m gonna– bye, gotta go do this.” Or it’s, there are frustrations that obviously come out of working with [00:35:00] teams. But I also feel like this idea, sometimes I’m in just a planning meeting and we’re trying to build something new or maybe just refine something.

I love those moments where we come up with something. It’s, “Oh, this is, yeah, this is what we need to do.” So I do love working with a team ’cause I’ve realized whether it was as a teacher or as a developer or a researcher, I feel like you can build something different with others than you can alone. Even in teaching, I felt that way.

I had once, my middle school, we worked– and even the high school I worked in, too, we worked as a team a lot, and that was rough sometimes. Not saying that’s always fun. We had our moments, for sure. It was difficult. But they were very good teams. I was lucky enough to work with some very good teams. And th- what you build and develop is something you can’t do alone, and when you work with a team like that.

And whether that mean planning or supporting a family, bringing in a family member to help a student or, in my work, designing something and then running it by a district or, there’s, it, the, that kind of being something bigger than myself is very powerful experience. So I think [00:36:00] working with a team, being able to have a little bit of fun, going out in the field, being able to sit in the classroom and kind of see what’s up, talk to a student, those are the things that make me happiest.

But sometimes it’s just like the, which is a luxury, I think, when compared to teaching, just being able to sit and work on a project alone quietly and try to– that’s having in a, in the, that’s a luxury you don’t have in the field a lot of times. Sometimes teachers do it on the weekend. But, so those are some of the things.

Just working on this program has been exciting, but I also love working with the districts we’ve worked with for years. I value those relationships so much, being able to talk to someone I’ve known for many years. I don’t know. There’s really– I think I’m a relational person, and so that’s where I get my energy.

Yeah. So that’s why I love being with you guys. This is fun for me because we get to just kinda talk about stuff like this, and it feels really thing for me. Yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: No, and it’s the synergy that comes from being able to- Connect with somebody else who’s also passionate about something similar and just see what happens.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I know. I love that you guys love this stuff. It’s [00:37:00] so great. Like my, some of my family is, “What do you do exactly?” Like, sometimes I think they don’t. But so it’s like I, I really value– They know it’s about kids and they’re excited about it, but it’s, it is exciting to be able to talk with y’all about this.

Andrew Brandt: Yeah. And I, what I’m hearing is find your people, find the people that help energize you in the work, and surround yourself with them, and we all need our own alone times at times, but I think we benefit and really feed off of each other, and I love that. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, and it sounds like it’s so baked into all of the work that you do.

You have a lot of humility in how you approach your work and how you talk about your work, it sounds like to me, and there’s such an emphasis on collaboration from– And something that stands out to me, too, is collaboration in your team and beyond. Collaboration with school districts, not just admin, but collaboration with teachers in those school districts, and you even mentioned seeing how students respond to a resource.

Like that you s- mentioned earlier that observational data, data and how you [00:38:00] triangulate that, just seeing how is a student interacting, and it’s very interesting to me. I’m just, I love it, the way that you’re thinking about your, the experience every user has with your resource, from admin to teacher to student, and it’s just so relational, and it takes a lot of humility to take that level of feedback.

Because you can’t create something and feel so attached to it that our team signed off on it, we’re done, so it’s as good as it’s gonna get. It, it takes so much humility to say no, like the next round is really like how do teachers respond? How do students respond? And then let’s make this thing better.

How– Do you have any thoughts about was that an intentional move? Is it just like part of how you see things and part of your workflow, or was this like a really intentional, almost like mission statement of how you would approach this work? 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I think there are other examples of it, but I feel, I guess I had experienced curriculum, doing [00:39:00] curriculum development early, both on my own and with a team, and even in those experiences, seeing the iterations, how they made an impact in the classroom.

But I think, I don’t know. I feel like when I, I d- I’m a researcher too. I went back and did some studying and to become a researcher, and the value of the research and what I learned from that experience. I did, in the early stages of the project when I joined, I did a cross case study of five schools, and it was just so fascinating, like what I learned.

And it was interesting because just to see the different perspectives. One example was like teachers versus counselors and like the totally different perspectives and being able to do focus groups and just having this deep experience with, it was mixed methods, but like especially the qualitative work of doing research had a big impact on my, the way I run the project, I think.

Because in the pa- and before that we, it wasn’t as possible and able to do that kind of evaluation, and we were able to bake it in a variety of ways, and I think it’s served us, [00:40:00] it’s a crucial part of the work to me because of that experience that I had. And to be honest, like I said earlier, having been a teacher and being included in a research study as a teacher, that had a big impact on me way before I became a researcher.

It was like, “Wow, my voice matters. It’s having a place in this person’s study. I matter, my kids matter, my school matters,” was very powerful to me. And I thought it’s very important to raise up these voices, and how do we do that strategically? So I have to be strategic. It’s not like we can, like we have to, we definitely have times where we’re not changing the curriculum ’cause we need the whole, or the way we do things, like we take a year, we’re piloting something, we don’t iterate, we’re just tr- implementing and looking at it in different contexts but documenting.

So you have, you do have to go in with a model and a strategy. You can’t just like constantly be changing. In the beginning years it was like, “Oh, let’s just react to what anybody says.” You can’t do that either. It has to be a strategy and research model and stuff like that. But I [00:41:00] learned that the hard way and through a lot of hard work, that you have to think about your model and how you strategically iterate.

But I think that all those experiences, whether it be as a teacher or now as a researcher or doing this work with districts, has taught me that this model is really important, and I think it’s what we can contribute as a smaller project. To the field. And I also like to believe that we raise up those voices of the students and teachers in specific ways.

I’ll also share a video that– the video so you can see it after the podcast. I’d like you to see it just so you can see some of the teachers at work, and it’s– I think it can– it’s a way to inspire others too. Certainly, they inspire me. 

Mandi Morris: Something that you’ve mentioned today is about the impact others have had on you and your work, and mentorship, and how valuable that’s been to you.

It makes me think about the question Andrew asked earlier about teachers who want to be leaders, and I think sometimes you don’t [00:42:00] know. It takes a bit of a tap on the shoulder, and admin sees it in you, and the power of that. I had that experience where an admin– I was a middle school ELD teacher, grades six through eight, and she was really pushing me to do PD for all of our teachers on campus.

Me? And she, she’s like, “You– I wanna have teachers come into your classroom and see what you’re doing, and you need to document the way…” I was like, “I don’t know how to put it in writing. In my mind, it’s good teaching. My students respond to it, but I don’t know how to put it in writing. I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to have a professional learning around it.”

But in hindsight, her encouragement completely changed my career. She saw something in me and believed in me and encouraged me, and I have gratitude for her for that. And even when I maybe pushed back a little bit like, “No, I’m good. I’m– I’ve got a good thing going here with my kids. I’m good.” 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Like it’s enough.

Maybe it’s enough 

Mandi Morris: or- Yeah. She really, with a lot of [00:43:00] patience, continued to just nudge me, right? With just so much grace. I think to any admin or any leader out there listening to this conversation, see the leader in your teachers. And I love what you said earlier, Lisa, the value of really raising up teacher leads, and that, that can, I think, sometimes take someone else acknowledging it in them because you also, you have your head down.

You’re so busy in the work that you’re doing that’s right in front of you. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah. Mandy, I love that you bring that up, and I know that’s been a book that was really important to me or formative for me was the book “Lean In” with Sheryl Sandberg. I’ve got– Having four daughters, I think a lot about women in the workforce, and of course, a lot of our teachers are women, and calling out the fact that women, by nature, oftentimes don’t see themselves and aren’t inclined to go after those leadership roles when really so much of our talent is in the, in, in the women in the workforce.

In particular in education, where it’s so predominantly women. And so I love that you call [00:44:00] that out, Mandy, the importance of, as leaders, of seeing that and encouraging and saying, “Hey, you know what? You’ve got a gift there that would really benefit the organization if you’d step into this role,” whether it be a title or whether it be a, some sort of lead role.

But yeah, I love that you bring that up. That’s something that I think- We benefit as an organizations, as a society, by encouraging more of our women and our teachers to step into some of those roles. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: True. I think that school leaders and administrators are really important in what you’re describing. I had that experience too, Mandy, and school leaders create spaces for their teachers, for their students.

They– There’s so much work they do to just keep things going every day, and you need generations of new leaders all the time. And sometimes it’s– It takes different forms, whether it be teacher leaders or school leaders or at the district level, but I think that is so important. It’s so fun to hear and lovely to hear about your own experience, and I think there’s so many leaders out there doing that for their teachers, which I think is important to affirm the work, ’cause it’s so– [00:45:00] Like you said earlier, it’s such hard work, needs to be affirmed so that teachers can keep going and supporting the families, the students.

Yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: Lisa, as we have this conversation, this has been amazing, there’s a thread that I feel like I’m seeing. What was the quote you mentioned earlier about focusing on building people that, that was really formative for you? 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was a school leader I worked with who just said to remember that the focus was to build– We’re building people.

Mm-hmm. That’s our work, is to build people and to pour into people. And I think we were building a high school the first year, and I think she was a big proponent of civic engagement, and she would teach a civics class, and to keep the focus not just on helping the students get good grades but– or the all the things you have to do, pass those tests, et cetera, that become so important in high school, and it’s so test-driven a lot of times that we forget that the goal is to build people and support people, them becoming adults, right?

And what does that look like? And she just– I think that seems obvious, right? [00:46:00] But just something about the way she framed it was so important to me, and in the way and kind of the philosophy in building the school. And it– I think it’s what all schools wanna do. It’s just sometimes we get just– It’s harder, especially as you get into high school.

There’s so many requirements for graduation. There’s so many– so much compliance. There’s test, the focus on testing. It becomes challenging. But I think more and more there’s this focus on socio-emotional learning, too, that wasn’t as emphasized when I was in my early years of teaching, and I think that is a good trend.

Meaning, meaning just building those skills, th-those ro– the skills that we need to support each other to be productive in the culture, to relationships, do decision-making, all those things that are important skills that are s- things we often don’t have in our curricula or haven’t traditionally had, was what she emphasized.

Andrew Brandt: No, that– And I love that, and I love– I feel like I see this in the way you approach your work. And I think when we– obviously we look at state test scores, obviously [00:47:00] there’s value and importance in that. But I think what you’re saying is th- th- can we look beyond the, some of the, whether it be the scores or even the curriculum we create.

Those are just products, those are just numbers, but look at the people involved in that, and whether it be you talking about how you’ve created a community around serving students and how you’re relating and connecting on a regular basis with that team, or you talk about kind of your, one of your favorite times was doing student council, where it’s not about a score.

There’s no score you give there. It’s bringing minds together, letting them relate, connect, and it really goes back to that, that what I hear you say is a really formative focus for you and formative moment of focusing on the people that, whether it be the teachers or the kids and who we’re becoming. I just love how you, and I can see in your work, have that focus, and I think it is a healthy reminder of, yeah, test scores are important, building resource is important, systems are important, but at the end of the day, it’s the people in those and how we relate and how we live our [00:48:00] lives and connect that really make this life and what we do enjoyable.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: That’s true, Andrew. That’s lovely. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah. No, this has been an amazing conversation, Lisa. I’m sad that we’re gonna be wrapping it up here soon. 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Me too. 

Andrew Brandt: This has been so much fun to have you back and get to know you a little bit more. Mandy, we got a few final questions. Should we head that direction? 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, let’s do it.

Lisa, what’s next for you? B- like just if we– we’ll do some questions that will be a bit quicker, like what’s on the horizon for you? If people wanna follow you, if people wanna know more about the work that you’re doing, what’s kind of something that people could be looking for, and where can people find you to get connected?

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Sure. Bridges to Academic Suc- Success.com is how you– our website. We just revamped it, so you can check us out there. We’re on LinkedIn and Instagram. Can follow us there. We sometimes post things from the classrooms and from our work. Yeah, you can email us at info@bridges-um-dash-sifeproject.com. That’s– we have that email address.

Any inquiries or anybody who wants to chat or [00:49:00] talk or learn more about what we do or get some support. Yeah, all those ways. And yeah, I think for us, for me, what’s on the horizon, honestly, I just described all the things, the revamping, the new, the programmatic piece. But I guess for me, it’s just learning and discovering what schools need next and taking a moment to see how the field is changing, the linguistic needs of our students, how we can be in touch with folks and see what the students, how they’re, what they need, what’s happening next for schools, how we can continue to serve.

New York is changing from NYSSSLAT to WIDA. We’ve been working with a lot of WIDA states, so we have a lot of information and knowledge to share, so that’s another way we’re help- maybe help some of our cohort in their, in that journey, like pivot on the New York side. Consider that. And just- Be better partners.

We continue to work with our partners and figure out also how to be– I think for me what’s become important, I will say this, is to be an advocate. And in [00:50:00] some of the things we’ve done recently are like, I hosted with some colleagues, invited a lot of colleagues, including the national Alejandra Vasquez Bower from the National Newcomer Network, folks.

Like staying connected on a national level so that I know what’s happening, so that I can give all the correct, most up-to-date, accurate information. Things like Plyler versus Doe, things that are legis-legislation that also can be really challenging for our families and our students, and threaten our civil rights for our students.

Like trying to be, bring all that information, having it available to our cohorts, having the most up-to-date policy information. So that’s something I’ve been focusing on, going to those network events, being connected to other educators who are doing work with multilingual learners. Being an advocate for bilingual education, ’cause we know the research shows that being bilingual is a superpower, and it really can have a huge impact on the way you learn.

And so I think being an advocate, sharing the resources, information, has been a new way of, although we’re constantly have our head down in the work, just making sure that we stay [00:51:00] connected and share the policy so that people can get the right and most up-to-date, accurate information, and so that they can also be an advocate for bilingual and multilingual education, and for our multilingual learners.

So that, that’s where I see myself to continue staying connected. I feel like places like NABE, Mandy, and TESOL, those conferences help with that. But, and then just going to these meetings has been really helpful to me to be able to share and do that part of the work, the advocacy. 

Mandi Morris: I’d love to know where would you recommend for people to get professional learning?

Where are you getting your professional learning for yourself? Like, where do you feel like, “I can get connected and I can fill my bucket,” maybe even when you’re on the go? ‘Cause we know it’s hard to get subs in classrooms. It’s hard to get out for PD. Is there a podcast that you follow or an audiobook that you could recommend?

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I have so many. A great council, City Schools, have a lot of- Academics that I look to, that I read. The W- WIDA has some great resources independent of just the work they do. There’s a lot of great [00:52:00] connect- connectors to WIDA. I feel that you can get a lot of good information on their website. CAL has been an amazing resource, so much great professional learning.

Those are just very few inter- like the International Literacy Network is not specifically for multilingual learners, but some of- they do have some resources that I find really helpful. Dr. Ofelia Garcia. Yeah, there, I feel like I’m always looking for new things. I read books, resources, but those are just a few.

And then the conference datas. The conferences are great too, because people– Debra Short, who’s on our advisory, she always has a lot of great things that she’s recommending and that she puts out. Even as she’s, quote-unquote, “semi-retired,” but … And they’re just reading what teachers do, too, like being connected at all levels.

So I kind of look at the research, but also like blogs and what’s happening in the field. But those, TESOL and NABE are great because there are a lot of voices there, and they have a lot of good conferences or online things you can get, online learning. So those are a few. That’s kind of where I’m always looking.

Sounds 

Andrew Brandt: like a lot of great recommendations. [00:53:00] Okay, Lisa, here’s the question I gave you a sneak peek before. What advice would you give for a new teacher who’s listening to this and saying, “Man, I’m just getting started. What– where should I focus?” 

Dr. Lisa Auslander: I don’t know. I think it depends on the person so much, but making sure you have time to plan, which is so hard to do.

Have your own planning time. Don’t judge yourself too harshly from m- from your mistakes. Expect to fail, and then learn from– A, a colleague of mine always says, “Fail forward,” which I think is very helpful because we all, you’re constantly failing in life. But i- in the beginning as a teacher, and even throughout your career, it, I do think it’s something you have to just know it’s gonna happen and learn from it.

Look for good mentors. Get sleep. Find a good friend you can vent to sometimes. Learn what you can from the kids. They will help you. Some of the students that you have will teach you what they need if you can talk to them. Yeah. 

Andrew Brandt: A lot of good words of wisdom right there from years of experience, I can tell.

Dr. Lisa Auslander: Thank you guys so much. [00:54:00] Andrew, Mandy, it’s so great to be with you today. Really enjoyed this. 

Mandi Morris: This has been such a lovely conversation. Thank you, Dr. Oslander, for being with us today.