Maggie Churchill: I’m big on delivering the promise, but having kids getting involved and actually be the ones that affect the change, because it’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to do.

Mandi Morris: This conversation with Maggie Churchill today was so fun. She has, I can only imagine one of those classrooms that is full of energy and experimentation. Students are excited to be in her room. They’re excited to find out what’s new key word from today. Maggie said, permission to crash and burn. I loved that so much.

Just giving her students permission to try something new and it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, and she’s giving herself that same permission as an educator to try new things, to experiment. Even 25 years into her teaching career, she is still pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a fun and engaging and just real ML educator.

Maggie is all about relationships, all [00:01:00] about making connections outside of her classroom for herself and her professional growth, um, and also for her students. This is such a fun conversation today with Maggie and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I.

Maggie Churchill has taught ESL Language Arts at Tenne Hill Middle School in closer New Jersey for 22 years, and is an adjunct instructor at William Patterson University. A past president of NJ TESOL and JBE and current WIDA representative. She has contributed to both state and national ESL advisory committees and authored the New Jersey Department of Education’s seventh grade ESL Model curriculum unit.

Maggie began her ESL career in 1998 in Queens, New York, and holds an MA in TESOL from Hunter College, as well as a reading specialist certification from Montclair State University. Maggie, welcome to the ML Chat podcast. We are so excited to have you here today. Thank [00:02:00] you. I’m so excited 

Maggie Churchill: to be here. 

Mandi Morris: So we wanna know a little bit about your school district.

Tell us like what is a day in the life for you, for your school district? Give us a feel, a sense of what your school district is like and the students you’re serving. 

Maggie Churchill: Day in the life is a little on the crazy side. I am the only ESL teacher in my school and we serve about 1200 students in district. We have two schools, so we’re only a K to eight district, but we have a team of five ESL teachers, four at the elementary school, and I’m the only middle school ESL teacher.

This past year was quite a busy one for me. I did have 40. Multilingual learners who came in, they come and go at various points throughout the year. So at one point I was quite busy. I had a full schedule change. They had to redo and realign schedules just so that I could see everybody twice. I do deliver both ESL instruction and language [00:03:00] arts curriculum to four different grade levels, 5, 6, 7, and eight.

And I get new students all the time and I get students who return to their countries all the time. So on any given day, we really don’t really know what’s coming and we just have to be prepared for that. It does feel a little bit like a one room schoolhouse since I am the only ESL teacher for my students.

So I’m all things to all people teaching multiple grades at the same time, teaching multi-grade, multi-level classes. So it’s tall order, but I’ve been doing it for a while. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So you have a lot of prep to be able to teach four different ELA classes. And then in addition to that, you’re doing ESL specific instruction delivery, it sounds like.

So I have a lot of 

Maggie Churchill: prep, but I don’t necessarily get a lot of prep. So we and on on top of it. And this is just the nature of the business these days, and I know lots of other folks can echo this. We don’t get often our preps because it’s very difficult to find substitute teachers. So we are. Often covering each [00:04:00] other.

So many days, you actually don’t get your prep at all and you get your lunch and that’s about it. So you’re always on the go. Always flexible. We’re always pitching in, helping each other. I’m very fortunate. I have had a great. A group of colleagues that I work with, they have all been there for a very long time, so we know each other and we know each other well, and they’re very familiar with working with multilingual learners.

We always had a high ML population. Even though we’re a small district, we’re very well known to folks in other countries. Specifically, this is a place to come to, and particularly our district in New Jersey. We never need to advertise, but it’s a tall order, but I think we deliver it well. 

Mandi Morris: That’s really such a cool perspective to be a small school district, but have a, a pretty high count it sounds like, of English learners coming in and outta your school district.

What do you think attracts people to your school district? 

Maggie Churchill: Our performance, of course, our on State’s course is strong. We’ve always been the town in particular, close to, it’s always been a very diverse town. You see it in the [00:05:00] stores. You see it in the storefronts, storefronts. In other languages and the students en engaging in all kinds of activities.

It’s a very active community. There’s lots of younger kids or schools are always busting at the seams. People come with typically three, four children, so we have large families and they know that the school does well. We have technology for every student. We do always add. Classes, we’ve increased the number of math classes that we have.

The one thing that is pushing the limits, like I said, is ESL. There’s, it’s just me. So we never really know how that’s gonna work out. So sometimes we had to do a quick pivot like this year to realign my schedule so that I could work directly with a newcomer class. But then you never really know where students are gonna, which classes they’re gonna come and go into, and you don’t necessarily have a lot of choice.

So I, I get who I get. It’s, it’s well known. I think it, it’s a, has a name that kind of keeps getting passed on to families in communities in that countries. So they’re always [00:06:00] hearing about it and they already know where to go before they even leave their home country. 

Mandi Morris: It sounds like a really special school district where there is a community environment and from the teachers all the way down to the students and their families, people are looking out for one another and very involved in the community.

It, it sounds really lovely. Definitely, that’s probably why I’ve been there so long. That’s wonderful and it helps you to really be leaned in to the community and support your students in a broader network, which is so lovely. When you think about your students in your school district, what do you think are the biggest needs right now that maybe you as a teacher are trying to figure out your situation where you’re like, I’m the only ML instructor in a middle school, is.

Pretty common that teachers are in that boat. So for you, where do you feel like that need is for yourself, for your students, or some challenges that you’re up against right now? 

Maggie Churchill: Right now, I have to say our student population, our ML population in [00:07:00] particular, are coming from areas that are experiencing war.

So they’re arriving under active trauma. It is. It’s not past trauma. It’s not past. Since they’ve arrived here, it’s for some mls. Once they arrive, their trauma is finished. That’s not the case. Many of them are here and the rest of their family is in their native country or they’re coming, or there’s a lot of political turmoil in their own country where the government’s not stable.

So that makes up the bulk of my ML population. I also know that in their country school has been very haphazard over the last year. Add to it that any student who is middle school, if you’re a fifth grader, this past year, you were a COVID. Kindergartner, sixth grade, COVID first grade. So these are students that had one to two years of definite documented learning loss, interrupted schooling, interrupted education, add to it.

Having to go through trauma in your country or a [00:08:00] war experience or political instability where schools may or may not be in session, it’s one day, hit or miss, might be here, might be not for the next couple weeks, might be back, and so that that experience of course, follows you. So we’ve seen a lot of issues with students’, emotional needs, behavioral needs.

Stability, perseverance, even some of the basics like attendance. So those are areas that we’re struggling with, that we typically have not experienced before. And I actually do think that our staff as well really needs to have some professional development around this. ’cause there’s a real need. It’s not a need that we’ve.

Had to directly address previously. And our academic delivery is very strong, but we are definitely seeing this in our students and it’s perseverating. So again, like I said, any student who’s middle school age now has experienced COVID directly and the educational effects of that and what it did to our schools and our communities, and so that, that’s a long recovery.

Add to it, [00:09:00] compound it with the traumatic experience of coming through this country and coming and leaving behind family, coming through war, coming through political instability. So this is all new for us and it definitely involves a lot more support for teachers as well. 

Mandi Morris: Absolutely. And often that support is hard for teachers to find.

And what we’ve been hearing nationally is a lot of school districts are experiencing cut professional learning days. So whereas teachers would have in a typical year, maybe. Somewhere between three and 10, depending on the school district professional learning days. Having those days cut may means that it’s really falling on teacher’s shoulders to self-educate or find time on the weekend or in the evenings in order to be better equipped to deal with the needs of their students.

Maggie Churchill: Yeah, I agreed. And add to it that you’re not getting that time during the day. Like I said, we don’t have, um, we don’t have the substitute base that we had pre COVID. We just don’t have it. So teachers are covering each other, [00:10:00] and that’s in every district and in some larger districts where you, it’s a constant shortage every day.

Do you have enough people to run the building or are students spending like a period in the gym, in the bleachers, in the back, on a laptop, because we’re just gonna consolidate kids. And that’s just these decisions that have to be made in terms of how are we running the building today? That’s what takes the precedence.

So you’re right, all these things are, they fall by the wayside. And we’re really seeing the effects that it’s having on kids. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So in addition to managing a lot of preps and losing your prep time to substitute and cover your colleagues, you stay really active in conferences and also in building out unit plans for the New Jersey Department of Education.

Presenting at wida, presenting at NJ tesol. So tell us a little bit about that involvement. That is, that’s really its own like part-time job is. Sounds in addition to teaching full-time, [00:11:00] what sparked your interest in charisma to get involved outside the classroom? It actually 

Maggie Churchill: came from a selfish place. I am, I’m an, I’m my only.

Department of one. It’s just me and I have no one to talk to about what I do for a living. I turned to the state, I turned to my local chapter of N-J-T-L-N-J-P-E. That’s how I got started 22 years ago. I heard about them and I started going, that’s back when we had in-person workshops face-to-face. I got involved with them.

That led me onto the state conference. I got involved pretty early on with wida, but really that that early work at the chapter is what? I, I basically cut my teeth on because it was just all of us pitching in. We’re all these individuals in our own little silos, not having anyone to talk to and needing to ask questions and try to get answers.

And so we turn to each other and there’s power in numbers. The state organization itself has become very strong. We are the only. Gig in town, so to speak, for professional development for ESL and bilingual teachers. [00:12:00] And so we have a pretty far reach. Lots of districts send their teachers for professional development.

They only get that once a year. And so I’ve been on the board for I at least 10, 12 years, something like that. And then I’ve been involved with wida. In fact, this will be my 11th year. Presenting it, Lita, and again, it came from those selfish need to talk to people. Hey, what are you doing? I does this sound right?

What do you think? And really just sort of. Trial and error, like trying things, trying it out in my classroom and sharing it out with others and just asking the world like, Hey, anybody out there? What do you think of this? Is anybody trying it? And sometimes you get crickets and some people are like, wow, yeah, that’s amazing.

That’s so great. I’m gonna try this. And that’s also too how I learn definitely from a approach and hand. I love materials. Um, physical, the physicality, like when I first started doing this. My master is up to 30 some years ago, I basically was back in the day of paper when you made materials. I love [00:13:00] things like realia, and I even still think in materials today.

I really see the value in the things that I’ve created or the materials that I’ve created that go along with what I’m teaching that really helped deliver. The content and language instruction at the same time, and that’s the same type of teaching that I do with graduate students at William Patterson University, with teachers around the state, is actually getting them to do it as well.

So in the last conference that we presented for NJT, so NJBE, I had the 175 people per session and I had them all doing an academic conversation with talk moves like the hall room. They were all like talking in their little groups where I had all these folks doing like text annotation on like. Pieces of paper with crayons, like sticking it in their hands and making people do it.

And we need to step away from the computer to take those moments and actually engage with each other and engage with the material, and engage with the work if we’re really truly gonna understand it and bring it back to our classrooms. 

Mandi Morris: I love that [00:14:00] approach, and I feel like the strongest workshops I’ve been in are when you have an opportunity to engage in what you’re learning.

I’m sure you’ve had that experience where you sit in a workshop and you’re thinking. This is so good. I, I wanna remember all of this. I wanna apply it, but it’s like I need a moment to process it. ’cause I’m gonna go straight from this workshop and I love that you incorporate that in your workshops Is the opportunity humans process.

By talking. That’s how we, we get our own thoughts to make sense to us so that they can make sense to others so our thoughts can be challenged so they can grow. I love that approach to your workshops. So tell us about wida. It’s going to be in Seattle this upcoming October. I’ll be at WIDA as well, so I’m excited to see you there, Maggie.

Um, but what will your session be about? Can you give us a sneak peek? 

Maggie Churchill: So, I’ve been very privileged to work closely with WEDA researchers over the last. I have to say 10 years. I originally started on their [00:15:00] LEA advisory committee, and that’s why I started to meet the people behind the scenes, the people who do the work of wida.

Right. So you never really get to put like a name, a face to the name. And that’s where I met a lot of these researchers. And I, I loved what I was hearing I was saying, and I, I met a couple folks in particular, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren and Dr. Lumi Schafer Wilmer, and I just. Latched onto them. I’m like, I wanna know everything about you and everything you’re doing, and I’m just gonna follow you around like a lost puppy.

And I just really absorbed, it was like a sponge. And again, it came outta that selfish need of, I have no one to talk to. You’re talking a language I wanna learn and wow like it. I wanna try all these things and bring it back. Because ultimately I’ve always found that when teachers are best prepared to deliver, again content and language instruction to our students.

That’s really where we see growth. This is where we can improve. We wanna make bottom line changes. You can get angry about all kinds of things, what’s happening in the world right now and what’s happening in our [00:16:00] country. But we have to put that aside because if we are not delivering. To the best that we can, our best level of focus and concentration and keeping the kids in sight.

That’s really where equity lies, and that’s what’s gonna make a difference, and that is the way that we can affect change. So I believe very strongly in being involved and knowing about what it is that you’re expected to do, even though it’s a total order. Right now, our standards are just shy of 400 pages, so it was a lot to learn at the beginning.

But I actually brought it back to New Jersey and I said, Hey again, here I am. Hi. Remember it’s me, I’m all by myself, and these are 400 pages. So I put it out there to the state and I said, I created a statewide PLC. And I said, Hey, who wants to go on this journey with me? Let’s just look and learn at these 400 pages and how we can break this down and start to deliver it in our classroom.

And it just came from, there’s no right, wrong, or otherwise let’s, we tried to keep it like as low. That lower that effective filter, let’s just look and learn, [00:17:00] right? And let’s just do it together. And that’s really how I’ve continued that relationship with them. So when I raise questions back to them, ’cause I’ve maintained all these relationships with researchers, the one thing I did this year was a new piece that’s actually part of the standards framework.

I mean, they’re called expressive language charts. So I piloted it this year in my classroom with my fifth grade students. And I have like samples of their work. And then what I again, really find valuable is when you’re given that time in a workshop, like you said, you never get time to process it. Here’s the actual time right now where we’re going to process it together.

And I’m fortunate in that I always have student examples and student samples, and my parents always support the work that I do. So I always get support. They always sign waivers for students to release their work and to show their work. I tell my students, I’m presenting it, I’m going to these conferences.

They always wanna know how people respond and it say, oh my gosh, they totally love this one. They had a lot of questions about this one. And so they love hearing that their work in the [00:18:00] classroom is also having a wider reach to the state and nationally as well. 

Mandi Morris: You mentioned something earlier about. And I just wanna go back and focus on it for a moment about what’s easy as an educator to get caught up in a lot of things that are outside of your control, but really keeping the focus on the student and teachers having the resources they need to be able to do the instruction that students need in that moment.

Over a course of a teaching career, teachers are given a lot of 500 page. Tes teacher additions. Right? And it’s, here you go. Good luck. Especially for new teachers, that is very overwhelming. And then we’re told, but you need to differentiate instruction. And you’re like, with this 500 page te, or is there something else I’m using to differentiate instruction?

Is somebody gonna tell me how to do that? Show me how to do that. I wonder when you think about teachers being resourced so that they can. See the [00:19:00] student that is sitting in front of them, meet the student where the student needs to be met. What does that look like 

Maggie Churchill: to you? And again, it starts with reaching out.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a department, right, start with that small PLC. So I go back to what were the things that I did that were most effective. And again, since I didn’t have, I have a department, they’re in a different school, so I don’t get to talk to ’em on a regular basis. I’m lucky if I get to see them for a once a month department meeting, or once every other month, something like that.

So again, turning to my chapter and turning to the resources that I have and putting it out there. To the world to say, Hey, um, let’s do this PLC together again. Can anybody share what do you think? Or even just give feedback. Just weigh in. Because I wasn’t that teacher who actually was given that whole, okay, here’s everything that you teach in a box.

Here’s your teacher dish edition, all that, like for years. Uh, I didn’t have any of that. Only more recently have we had a digital actually on the, just in the last two years. I, it’s my first time with a digital textbook and the things to click on, [00:20:00] I have a smart board, but I’ve always told the kids I’d rather have smart students than a smart board.

So I’m not worried about that big thing behind me. ’cause if it’s broken, I know one of you can fix it. And so that’s more my concern, but I just find that, again, I go back to what I know and that’s that outreach to other folks to say, look, bottom line is that we have to be, we are the expert in the room and we have to be there for the kids, and you have to put these other things aside.

And making the work in the room and seeing the success of the students in front of you is what’s really going to have an impact in the world, is really going to create that equity. Right, so we have to put things aside and put them in their own little boxes for now, and really just focus on the work at hand and even starting small.

And that’s always been, I think the one thing that I’ve done a lot in workshops is, or a lot of the content that I present is sort of these bite-sized pieces, and I always have folks try it and so they realize it’s not so scary after all. Again, if you can break down that 400 pages, say, okay, so let’s just look at [00:21:00] this bit.

Let’s just see what this, what the impact has here, right? It’s just one thing you can try and by having people go through that experience and realizing, okay, this is definitely worth it. I could do this. And like I said, when I had, I did a workshop on academic conversations and I had based on the original work of Jeff Weers, and I saw him years ago at the very first wida.

And it really impacted me because we went through that same experience of actually having that conversation and seeing what that’s like. And I create materials often that go with it. And so of course I had all these folks in the room doing it, and then I had all these materials and they’re like, but what about this?

What else? And I, I just told the whole room. I said, keep it all, I don’t wanna carry any of it back with me on the plane. People were so excited. They’re like, it’s like gold. I’m like, really? They’re just flashcards on a ring. You could make it too, but okay, that’s fine if you want it. But it’s again, more important to me that they’ve gone through that experience.

They now know the steps. And when they know the steps, they have the confidence to implement it. That is gonna transfer to the students [00:22:00] because by the end of the year, at the end of each unit, I had students saying to me, oh, and teacher, are we gonna have an academic conversation? I’m like, oh, look at you little smarty.

Of course we are. But like, how fabulous that this is what they know is expected. Right, because our room is the safe place where we need to try these things and they need to deliver it because once they move into mainstream classrooms or the other mainstream classrooms that they are in, we often see that our MLS are the ones in the corner.

They’re quiet, they’re, they might not be participating. You might not see their hand shot up in the air, but they need, these academic conversations are critical for them. This is their way in and this is their way upwards, and so we have to maintain. And create that space for them. 

Mandi Morris: I can tell in listening to you talk whether you’re working with adults at a workshop, your students that are getting their degrees, or your students in your classroom and your your day job, right?

That relationship is [00:23:00] super important to you. It sounds like you are all about relationship, being very present with your intentions, being very present with the people in front of you, and I think that’s. So beautiful, especially in a time when we are so distracted and there’s so much noise. There’s just constant noise and it’s easy to get caught up in that noise and then honestly be discouraged by it and feel like nothing I do matters because there’s just so much coming at you, whether you’re a student or a teacher.

I think on both sides, there are those feelings I love. What I’m hearing from you is really about being present and building those relationships, reaching out to your network as a professional building community for your students in your classroom and in your school. The broader community as well, um, and also just building.

Confidence whether you’re working with adults, like in a workshop you want, you said you wanted those teachers to be able to feel confidence around going back to their classes and [00:24:00] doing the academic discourse, and I am sure that a huge part of what you’re doing is building confidence in your. Students.

I wanna go back in time now. We know you’re all about relationships now. I’m super curious, was there a relationship that brought you into education? How did you find yourself in as an educator? 

Maggie Churchill: That’s the family business. So my father was a math teacher at my high school. My sister is also a professor. My grandfather was a fifth grade social studies teacher.

I have two other cousins who are also too, so it’s the family business, so to speak. But my own children have reminded me, it ends with me. They don’t, they right now they’re saying they don’t have any plans to go into education and that does hurt a little bit just because there’s, knowing three generations this is gonna end here.

Not necessarily, there’s might be others who take it on and sadly I can see why. And I think a lot of, because what you’re saying, there’s you, we hear a lot of noise right now. There’s a lot of. [00:25:00] Education was hit major blows from COVID, of course. And since then, right? We’ve not recovered from it. And now we’re fighting for our livelihood, literally, quite literally.

And these are big blows to take. These are, it’s a heavy burden to shoulder. And you have to put that aside and you have to compartmentalize it a bit to say, okay, so that’s, it can’t detract from what I have here in front of me. And that’s you and that’s your, I’m looking, when I’m looking at my students, I’m looking at the future.

We can’t forget that because we have that obligation of course, but we have to grow that and cultivate it and who knows what the potential is and given to add to it all of the politics of where they’re coming from and what they’re going through right now. There’s so much that they shoulder as well. So by, by putting all of that aside for them also and really focusing on the work and helping them see what they truly can do.

It gets us back to that asset based perspective [00:26:00] of, again, I’m literally looking into the future. What a powerful moment to realize the potential of this young person or the potential of this new teacher. I love working with new teachers who are coming new into the profession and people always say, oh, your class is so different.

And I said, ’cause I’m the fun one. We get to make stuff, right? I’m all about, what are you doing on Monday? I’m not the 25 page research paper. So of course we like this class, but that’s always been my approach. And bottom line is you’ve gotta deliver and you’ve gotta make sure that they can deliver. So it’s, it’s double-edged sword, but we’ve gotta remember that is the work, the critical work that’s in front of us, that is even more necessary for multilingual learners, especially now.

Mandi Morris: So when you describe your class as the fun class, there’s always something going on that I am just visualizing a space where there’s a lot of excitement and conversation and students are able to move around and engage in the work. But tell us, what does your class look like if you [00:27:00] were to pull out. A handful of things where you think, this is why kids are making language growth in my class.

We know relationship is a big piece of that, but thinking more about instructionally, what does that look like in your classroom? What advice would you give to other teachers listening today? 

Maggie Churchill: It’s funny. So thinking about coming on the ML Chat podcast, I was reminded that for the first time this year, I had my own students do a podcast not knowing the first thing about it myself, and I’m a little bit famous for that.

Okay. We’re just gonna dive in and see where it takes us. So my students know enough about me to know that if I say something. It’s gonna happen because I’m a person of my word, and I tell ’em this in the very beginning. So I said some pretty outrageous things in terms of, oh, we’re gonna do that. Oh, we’re gonna do, oh, it’s happening.

And so they’re like, they get a little afraid because Oh, we know if she says it, we’re doing it. We’re gonna do a podcast. Okay. New Jersey this past year had a new standard for all teachers that we are now required to teach about climate change. [00:28:00] Every class, every subject. So I’m a language arts teacher.

It’s not so difficult for us. We already had a topic in our textbook that was based on the British text called Six Degrees, and it’s basically about what happens to the earth at each degree of warming, right? There’s a book about it and there’s also a video. Different videos have been. Shot about each degree and what happens and gets a little bit towards a doomsday scenario at the end, I did, yeah, I did this with my seventh and eighth graders.

It wasn’t our textbook, and it said, okay, we’re gonna die. I always dive a little bit deeper, but then my bottom line is always about, we can’t just read about climate change. Right? They know that I’m a doer. Okay, so we’re gonna do something, right? So look around us. What do we see in our community right here in the school?

What is the change you think we could make? And one of the students brought up that in our school, we actually don’t have a dedicated lunchroom. Our gym becomes our lunchroom. Food has to get brought in. So now that we’re a small school, so we don’t have [00:29:00] all these dedicated spaces, a lot of our spaces are multifunctional.

And so the food gets brought in, and then everyday kids are using pla, single use plastic cutlery. So they wanted to propose that we change that. And we had learned about, there’s different colory that you could that’s made from kiwi or it’s compostable and can get rid of plastic straws. Maybe we can use chopsticks, maybe people can bring their own.

So we wrote an essay proposing this change, and we sent it to the president of the PTO and we send it to the princip. And we took a stand right about making this change. And then they also researched an area of a problem within climate change and a solution. So they created a podcast about a solution.

So it was solution oriented. And I’m actually happy to say that it was one of the pieces that was used to contribute to our gold award that we just got from New Jersey Audubon for being a green school. So some of these things that I’ve done with my classes actually helped contribute to the greater.

Effort that the school [00:30:00] made to getting that designation. So we get to fly our green flag this year outside of our school because we’re a gold school according to New Jersey. Audubon, kudos to the kids. It was their work that did it. So they made podcasts. And then in my other class we also made bee houses.

’cause we studied about that. And you know me, if I say we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna make it. So we had to make it and we gave it to the. Gardening club, and they’re gonna hang them around the school grounds so that we have bee houses. So I’m big on, I’m big on delivering the promise, but having kids getting involved and actually be the ones that affect the change, because it’s one thing to say it.

It’s another thing to do. 

Mandi Morris: Oh, Maggie, I love that so much. I wanna be in your class. That just sounds like a lot of fun. You 

Maggie Churchill: never know what’s 

Mandi Morris: gonna happen. You never know. I wonder. If you’re a very seasoned teacher, so for teachers who are in their, for say, one to three, four years, they’re in survival mode and they’re listening [00:31:00] to you and thinking, I can’t do that.

I’m happy for you Maggie. Sounds super cool. Your students are really lucky. That is not me. Or maybe a teacher that just has to have things in their control. They need the buckets because they need it to feel like I can control classroom behavior, I can control the outcome. And we know education is full of type A perfectionist.

Right. So what advice or thinking would you give to someone in either of those buckets to maybe shift their thinking a little bit around you can do this, and here’s why. 

Maggie Churchill: So a lot of times when I’m working with teachers directly, whether it’s at a conference or graduate students, they’re already seasoned teacher who happen to be maybe getting a certification or an additional certification or even professional development.

In my own district, I’m, I try to show them almost like the way something works and how it functions so that the topic doesn’t really matter. So take for example, those [00:32:00] academic conversations or. I’ve done a lot of work around tech sanitation, so again, I have the entire room doing this. They’ve never done it before, but what’s most important is that you go through the process.

So again, once you’ve experienced that, you know what the steps are. I always give directions. It’s the same way I present it to the kids. These are the directions. I always model it in front of them, like a fishbowl activity. They can see it and they can observe it, and now you’re gonna do it and you’re gonna try it in this timeframe, and good, bad, or otherwise like it.

It might, you might. Crash and burn the first time you do it. That’s totally fine. I’ve done it too. Right. And I actually, this past year, I actually, I think for the last two years I had video observations. I’m at the point where they don’t really know what to do with me. So like, okay, yeah, you’re just gonna video tape yourself.

Just write it up and stick it in the box and work it. Um, so, okay. And so I videoed my class. Doing their academic conversation. So I actually am just playing. I’m recording just the sound. I just really need to hear it so that I can write it up. So [00:33:00] from that, I actually create the process. Okay, so here are the steps.

So here’s how you do it. So again, what you do doesn’t matter, but the content, you’re the content expert. I’m showing you this process. So if this is something that you can add to each of your units. That’s gonna build the oral language fluency and the use of academic language for our multilingual learners.

This is what’s gonna have the greatest impact because I also take state tests with kids. I am their hands, I’m a scribe for my students. So it’s an allowable accommodation in the state of New Jersey. So I actually see what’s on the state science tests. I see what’s on the math test, and one of the areas that I know is difficult to address is this academic conversation, specifically in math, which is critical because on the state math test, kids are asked to justify their thinking.

And one of the questions they actually ask them after they go through all these steps is, what did you [00:34:00] think about your thinking? Kids are like, what? What? What is this? What is, it’s very meta. It’s very like, what? They’re like, what is this? Stupid question. I’m like, okay, let’s think about this. So it’s really about the process.

And so the more they can engage with each other, and again, it helps ’em use vocabulary, it helps them use academic language, which is, which is very different from the way that they talk to each other at recess, right? This is not, how do you open your locker? Right? This is basically I’m justifying my thinking and my choices, and I’m maybe even helping come to a solution set and negotiate that meaning with a partner or a group.

And that’s critical work. And this needs to happen in every classroom. So the content doesn’t matter. It’s really about the process and the direction. So it’s those key essential experiences. That teachers need to have so that they can implement this type of thing into their already existing unit. So it’s nothing new that here’s the steps, here’s the process.

Here are the directions. You learn it. And now once you have it, you can swap out the content. And I present [00:35:00] academic conversations that way. I present text annotation that way so that once you do it and you’ve been through that experience, again, it doesn’t matter what the content is, swap it out. ’cause guess what?

I see those questions on the state test. I know what’s coming. The kids that I’ve had that have been through that experience were very well prepared and had the stamina to get through those questions on the state test. That’s not even the access for ELs test. 

Mandi Morris: Mm-hmm. 

Maggie Churchill: On their state content test. 

Mandi Morris: What I’m hearing from you is you try new things and you are doing hands-on activities.

You’re pushing yourself as an educator and pushing your students to think outside the box, work outside the box, but you’re also keeping some consistency in your structures. Yeah, so that academic discourse piece, that’s going to be part of our process over and over again. And I imagine you probably have other classroom routines, classroom expectations that are rinse and repeat.

So students are spending their time and energy thinking [00:36:00] about the new content, the new academic vocabulary that they need to learn, and then be able to. Apply. Thinking about unpacking an academic discourse and responding to it. The metacognitive thinking, lift and load and they’re speak. Spending less time having to constantly learn a new routine or a new structure because you’ve got those working on repeat in your classroom.

Right. And like I said, other ones saying to me, 

Maggie Churchill: are we having another academic conversation? Are we gonna have to write that scientific explanation? I’m like, you could teach this class. Let me sit down ’cause you’ve got it. And that’s where I really saw great growth My, my students did very well in the writing section of the access, which is typically very hard to achieve that level.

And they really showed great stamina and growth on the state science test where there’s a lot of writing. Because they had that constant practice, and again, it was the same protocol, but the content changed. So by the end, they really, they were doing amazing things this year and they knew how to do it.

And that’s the goal. [00:37:00] It’s, what’s the old proverb about you give a person a fish, you feed ’em for the day, but you teach ’em how to fish. And you feed them for life because they’re always gonna know how to give this explanation or they’re always gonna know how to write a report because it doesn’t matter what the content is, it’s the process.

It’s that flow, it’s the discourse structure. They know what a report looks and sounds like that’s what’s most important. 

Mandi Morris: Something you said earlier about whether the outcome is good, bad, or otherwise. You said something along the lines of permission to. Crash and burn. I just want that as a poster in your classroom.

I love that. I love that it’s giving students permission to try something new and it not be perfect. And I taught middle school for many years, and both in the ELA space and as an ELD specialist and sometimes in a combo space, more what you’re doing and. I feel that age of life is tricky for its own reasons, and then you add the layer of your, you’re a language learner, you’re [00:38:00] going to make mistakes.

All day long and how hard that is for kids, and no wonder why they wanna be in your room because it’s probably that one space where it’s like permission to crash and burn. I’m gonna try it. I’m gonna make mistakes, and that’s just an acceptable norm for my language journey versus something that makes me feel other.

Right in the rest of my school day. So I feel like for anybody listening today, that is like your catchphrase for your classroom. I love that. Permission to crash and burn, try new things, good, bad or otherwise, and don’t be afraid to try new things. And you’re also talking a lot, Maggie, about giving your students opportunity to.

Engage in work that feels very applicable, not only outside of your classroom, but then in life beyond school. I think a lot about what is life gonna look like for my kids. I have a son going into eighth grade. And I’m starting to hit that space of, whoa, you mean we’re [00:39:00] gonna be looking at colleges in four years?

What is life gonna look like for you? And careers and parents are thinking a ton about AI and what does that look like for our kids? Choosing careers down the road and teachers are thinking about that, but I. Can’t help but think that those soft skills that you’re talking about, that students’ ability to communicate effectively, to communicate with confidence, AI or not, those are skills that are going to be really powerful for our students.

Maybe even more powerful than we’ve seen in the past. 

Maggie Churchill: Yeah, AI can’t replace everything as much as some people might like it, it, these are, and especially too, I think coming out of COVID, there’s been a real push within the education community to return to the old days, but also to return to, and a lot of people quickly abandoned the Chromebooks because they were done with that.

Like we, and we’ve also seen the damage as well. If you talk to anyone who’s upper elementary. More. Even like I said now, those COVID kindergartners, the fifth grader or the [00:40:00] current sixth graders, COVID first grade, these are kids who didn’t have regular practice with paper and pen. So I’ve had to do a lot of work with spelling and printing, and that transfers into reading fluency.

So we’re seeing a lot of this direct interruption and they’re struggling with reading, and that’s not a surprise because it’s all connected. There. I understand real, the real desire to throw the Chromebook back out the window. And we do need to return to these things and luckily teachers have, we’ve put a lot of limits on, I have to say we don’t, we use the computer more for.

The physicality of writing in my room because we have to, because the access test is on the computer and the state tests are on the computer, so I don’t want them doing their finger typing, even though they still do their finger typing. I have to give them, often, practice often enough so that it. Just the inability to type doesn’t inhibit the response.

I want them to produce enough, and I want them to feel comfortable using the computer, but [00:41:00] there really has been a real need to return to face-to-face communication idea for, especially for idea generation or just engaging with each other, making the eye contact, turn, taking all of these things fell by the wayside.

Again, that also comes along with, we see kids struggling with social interactions ’cause they weren’t having them for a while and now they’re thrown back together and we’re assuming, okay, the light switch but is back on. We’re good to go. Not really, there’s still a lot of work that needs to happen around conversation, engagement, kids being able to sustain the task, having the interest in coming to school for the first time this year, I’ve had a lot of, just a lot of struggles around school attendance.

Kids wanting to be here, not wanting to be here with that middle school emotional self is, and that really has also, that’s been on the increase again, since students are also coming from these interrupted backgrounds or coming from very unstable situations. No wonder there’s a lot of fear around going to school and [00:42:00] what it’s gonna be like.

And here I am starting all over again, new somewhere else. So I think there’s still quite a bit of work. That needs to happen and I think teachers need a lot of support because this is new for us and it’s definitely out of our realm and we’re seeing so much more of it and pretty significant trauma. I’d have to say, much more than anything I’ve ever been prepared for, and I include myself in that as well.

We need a lot of help with that. 

Mandi Morris: When you’re thinking forward to next school year, so it’s summer break right now for you, and I’m sure this is when you stay busy with a lot of your professional development building and getting ready for the new school year coming up, what are some things that you’re feeling excited about for next school year?

Maggie Churchill: I know I’m starting off with another large group. Again, these are bigger classes, so I definitely wanna work on building capacity and helping kids. A lot of kids who I have are new to the country, new here, and. I do pride myself, the fact that in our class we [00:43:00] take that time to deal with immediate needs, right?

We welcome kids in, we create that community, and that always happens in ESL and bilingual classrooms because we’re always like home to them. So I always enjoy that part of getting to know kids and finding new and different ways to do that and getting into some new content. So I often have students for multiple years, so I don’t get to teach the same thing year after year.

I don’t teach the same thing all day, so I, ’cause I’ll have kids multiple, multiple years in a row. I have the whole family. It’s a family affair here. So I’m excited for whatever the new projects are that I can cook up. Because I’m definitely always gonna be doing that, and sometimes things just present themselves and they know I’m willing to go for it.

Like I said, that’s the motto in my room. Dive in, just make sure there’s water in the pool first. 

Mandi Morris: That’s great. We’re gonna talk through some rapid fire questions. If you could go back in time and talk to yourself as a baby teacher, what advice would you give [00:44:00] yourself, Maggie, 

Maggie Churchill: as a baby teacher? Wow, that’s a tough one.

I don’t think there’s much I would do differently. ’cause that’s definitely like the spirit of it and I feel pretty confident in just my delivery and my ability to deliver. Maybe that’s the three generations of teacher and me talking. I don’t know. I don’t know if you could ever be more prepared, but it’s, I guess, anticipate what’s coming.

Might be it, but what exactly we don’t know have? Having that flexibility, which I do, it’s just sometimes it’s a lot. So maybe even like having a way to, to help yourself get through that when it’s a whole lot, like I said, and I’m the only one who is dealing with a lot of things, finding that that space or that outlet or that place in school or for me, it’s always been colleagues.

Because I’ve had fantastic colleagues throughout my career that I can turn to. So those are the ones that I lean on when things get just not outta control, but like, uh, really unexpected or things that you can’t anticipate. I guess if [00:45:00] anything it would be that, like maintaining that flexibility and realizing there’s only so much that you can control in the course of the day and only so much you can actually affect change on.

And like I said, I’m very focused on the person in front of me and that’s often what helps me get through the kind of. Craziness of everything that’s around me. 

Mandi Morris: I love that. Be flexible. We’ve heard you give a lot of advice about relationship building. If you were to give an additional piece of advice to a new teacher or leaning into relationship, there’s so much coming at new teachers, I think it’s hard to know where to.

Start, where would a new teacher, where should they lean to find relationship first? Because for you, you’re a veteran teacher, so you have all these different layers of community that you’ve built with colleagues from the district level to state level and national level. Like you’ve really pushed yourself in reaching outside of even your immediate zone.

But for a newer teacher, where could they start [00:46:00] if they wanted to collaborate with colleagues and get ideas beyond their own school building? TESOL 

Maggie Churchill: and NABE are national organizations. I originally turned to that, believe it or not. When I think back, the question reminds me of the work that I did as a graduate student done or some years ago and at Hunter College in cuny, and my question was for my thesis, believe it or not, was how do teaching professionals stay informed about what’s happening in their field?

Of ESL and bilingual education, which is crazy that that was what I thought because I’m like, I got involved in TESOL as a graduate student. I thought, okay, how is everybody else finding out about these things? Like how do they know? What do you do? And it’s really because I felt that need to build that sense of community.

We’re ESL bilingual folks. We’re the only ones as we’re in these silos, right? So we need to connect with each other first, right? We’ve gotta reach out and build our own support network and that, and I turned to my chapter early on. So whatever chapter you have, whether it’s nice tesol, so New [00:47:00] York State, a lot of states have separate In New Jersey, we are combined.

We are one of three. Joint affiliates of Big TESOL and big nave. So we’re NJ Tsol, NJBE. And quite honestly, this is a group of professionals that I have known now for 10, 15 years. It’s been the same people at the level and I was so honored to lead the organization through six years of leadership program there.

And I continue to still serve the organization as a the WIDA rep and just head of the governance committee. So I’m looking to give back to the actual organization itself. Where I’m helping them continue to manage their growth. Having the perspective as of a past president of someone who actually was in that seat, and of course during my tenure, I had to make the decision to cancel the conference because it was COVID and still pay the employees of the organization and still have to like, make this big decision.

Yeah, I lost quite a bit of sleep there knowing that they’re always there. They’re, they’re just like the light and the darkness. I turned to them and through them I met [00:48:00] folks from the state. And I met folks from WIDA and I just reached out and it just multiplies. It’s that just amazing ability to, so many people have told me, they’re like, oh, I saw you do this.

I saw you do that. And I’m like, I know the entire state of New Jersey knows me. And I’m like, I apologize if I can’t remember you. I think I’ve spoken to everyone in the state, quite literally, and it’s just wonderful to have that many connections. And it’s, to me, that’s what kind of answered that void. And it’s a question I’ve clearly always had, and it’s one that I think about for the future.

Like I said, even new teachers, um, knowing that there’s folks coming into these positions again where you’re the only one. And I maintained close connections with a lot of my former students and I’m like, you’ll always have me because I’m still trying to figure stuff out too. So now you won’t be alone.

You have me to lean on where you can turn to the chapter, but that’s really what helped fill the void for me. And luckily a lot of these things have taken off, but I would turn to your local chapter of either TESOL or nabe, or if they’re both together, start there. 

Mandi Morris: [00:49:00] Maggie, your kids might not want to be educators when you know they’re choosing their career path, but I have no doubt that you have inspired a lot of other people to pursue a career in education and have supported, I’m sure many teachers getting up on their feet and getting started.

I’m sure you have loads of students out there that 10, 15, 20 years from now are going to be on a podcast and say, I had a teacher, miss Churchill, and she, and. Inspired me to do this work to be an educator. Your passion is so deep and it’s just been really an honor to talk to you. With all of these years of experience with the same, it seems like this level of charisma and excitement that is just wonderful.

I can feel the energy from you even here through the screen. It’s just been so lovely to get to know you and to hear from you today, and I look forward to being able to meet you in person in October. 

Maggie Churchill: Excellent. So do I. Thank you so much. It’s really been a privilege. It’s [00:50:00] just a great opportunity to bring our work to a larger audience.

I love the potential for ML Chat and just podcasting in general since I’m new to it with my students as well. It seems like a real natural way for them to also encourage that talk, and so it’s also something I hope to continue. I think I’ll be podcasting every year with my students. ’cause now that I’ve done it written by the bug and I love it.

And they were really natural with it too. So it’s a great way to dive in and discuss these issues and really chew on them and get into topics. But it’s just, it’s so natural and I’m glad that you’ve created this wonderful space where folks can do that. So thank you for having me. 

Mandi Morris: That’s so wonderful to hear.

I appreciate it. Maggie. Have a great rest of your summer. I hope you have some adventures and rest planned as well, and I’m sure your students will be excited to see you come the new school year. Thank you for being here today.