Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I am your host, Dr. Michael Conner, CEO, and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group, and of course, the proud host of VFE and today's guest. I am a longstanding fan, FAN. Yes. Not only for education. But to my audience, JB is a baller.

Michael Conner: Yes. And, and she knows I love to break the ice with that. And to my audience, I just absolutely adore this educator. And you're gonna see why for all the work she has done in the state of Wisconsin. For her work, not only in multiple districts, and I can't wait to start to unpack that. Talking about her experiences from a teacher to being a principal.

Michael Conner: Now, the [00:01:00] Deputy superintendent of Racine Public Schools in Racine, Wisconsin. Yes, VFE. We got her. On the show, and I tell you this, when we were last together we were, when we were together, last time was in June in Orlando at the PDK Educator Rising Conference in Jody. Uh, miss Jody Bloyer, I apologize 'cause I just love her so much.

Michael Conner: I forgot to mention her name. Jody is on the PDK International Board and when we just started talking, because I'm one of the distinguished educators. Fellows for that, we just, yay. I know, right? We just started just to talk, talk, and next thing you know, we were interrupting some of the sessions because we had our own side conversations going on and we were just talking education and what we can do to improve the model for kids.

Michael Conner: So. Without further ado. Yes. And she's a basketball baller. I'll tell you that. Our conversations go from education to basketball, talk [00:02:00] basketball for an hour, then we go back to education, then back to basketball. That's why I'm such a fan of her. So, without further ado, welcome Ms. Jody Bloyer to Voices for Excellence.

Michael Conner: Jv, what's going on? How are you?

Jody Bloyer: Thank you. Why? Why didn't you tell them that the, that we paused and we, um. Played a game and I beat you. Why didn't you add that to the conversation? Oh, wait, sorry, sorry. This is your podcast. Sorry. My bad.

Michael Conner: Listen, I'll tell you, listen to my audience. JB got the form right and I, I, jb I remember when we were out where we were in Orlando, we're like, where can we find a basketball court?

Michael Conner: And I'm like, I ain't playing in this hot weather outside so sticky in Florida. But Jody, so good for you to be here and thank you for having me. Absolutely. And I just want my audience to actually fail what you have been doing in education for such a long time over your, I like to say illustrious career that you have had, and then what you're [00:03:00] doing in the Racine Public School specifically, how you are really redefining, not only just from an instructional standpoint, but bring it in multiple entities into the actual learning organization for strategic partnerships.

Michael Conner: So we're gonna expand on that. Jody, for all the people that don't, I know you intimately, you're, you're such a dear friend, educator, someone I just admire specifically with the work of how you're bringing in community partners and partnerships into Racine, but for those outside of the Midwest and the state of Wisconsin.

Michael Conner: And we're also gonna talk about the work that you're doing to UPS stand Midwest. So we're gonna talk about that work that you're doing now as well, but for the people that are outside of Wisconsin and outside of the Midwest, what song describes your work in Racine Public schools and the ecosystem as well as a board member for PDK International?

Jody Bloyer: Yeah. Well, thank you. Um. You [00:04:00] know, I, I, I, I can pick a song, right? But I think, uh, you know, I don't really define myself by geographical boundaries, right? It's a song that I think really embodies the work that I've done since I just started to get into this, right? So I, I actually play this song, and now my staff will play it when they, when I come in sometimes, right?

Jody Bloyer: But it's absolutely, um, unequivocably, Alicia Keys underdog, right? So if you know that one, this, this goes out to the underdog. Keep on keeping it what you love, right? So it's really a reminder for me in the work that I do. It's my why. It is also for the people we serve, it's for the community we serve, the greater community we serve, right?

Jody Bloyer: Um, you'll find that's, you'll rise up, right? That's really what it really what it's about. If you stick to it, um, we'll rise up. And I've kind of always liked to, you know, support or I guess encourage the underdog. And so whether that be, um, in the work that we do in urban education or whether that be in the families we serve in our [00:05:00] community, or just, you know, within myself, um, when, you know, someone may, um, think or have you the perception you can't, Hey, let's support the underdog.

Jody Bloyer: So that's, that's a, that's a song that that play often.

Michael Conner: Absolutely Jody, and I'm not surprised you would choose a song like that. Right. And when I think about it specifically, the work that you underscore, you are truly an educator that put kids first, that puts community first. You exemplify the model of putting.

Michael Conner: Education in kids before the actual constituents and stakeholders of the learning organization in itself. And that's what we need to do, right? We, it's, I always like to say, when we say selfless leadership, selfless, selfless, leadership underscores. Putting the primary needs of students first, and I wouldn't be, I'm, I'm not surprised that you say that, right.

Michael Conner: [00:06:00] The greater community you serve and you do that within your work in every single thread of ing, specifically, like I stated at the outset, a, a model for urban education, but as the deputy superintendent of Racine public Schools in Racine, Wisconsin, one. I wanna be able to have you demystify a misnomer, right, about the student demographics that you serve in Wisconsin, specifically in Racine, and what you're doing there.

Michael Conner: But moreover, what I admire about your work. We're seeing, Jody and I, I highlight this anywhere I can. When educators, leaders, superintendents are talking about what can we do for mental health, what can we do for SEL, what can we do for restorative practices now that, you know, we're seeing our students, you know, coming in with different needs.

Michael Conner: Moreover, Jody, I don't know if you heard about this metric and we haven't talked about this, and this is something that we're gonna unpack offline, our [00:07:00] babies or students. Or babies. They were babies during COVID. They are our first kindergartners now, so. We're not even talking about the students that lived the school experience, but the students that lived COVID as babies, now they're kindergartners.

Michael Conner: So when it comes to student behaviors, mental health, SEL, how you're integrating air interjecting community, that includes members being a part of the school thread. From a systemic and systematic design perspective, Jody, you know, what key strategies did you underpin and Racine so that now those practices are a part of the cultural thread in your school system?

Jody Bloyer: Yeah, wow. That's a, that's a really big question. Right. I think that for me, and I, I would say for my colleagues, you know, we, we recognize that that social emotional learning is academic. [00:08:00] Academics are social emotional learning, right? We often try to separate those two things out. They really are a, um, a, a partnership in the work that we do, but again, always remembering it extends beyond the walls of the classroom.

Jody Bloyer: So it's what strategies can we actually go and give to the home to work on. You know, we have a, a system here where it's really about cradle to career. So it's that, you know, you talk a lot about maybe for K to 12. Educational alliances, we really have to step way back to the cradle. And what are those strategies?

Jody Bloyer: What are those things? What are those pieces that we can give maybe young mothers or second or third generational grandmother, aunt, uncle, extended family that are raising our young, our young children, and especially when that was through that COVID time. Where there was isolation, where there was um, times where, you know, young people, you know, may not see another young [00:09:00] person for a while or be able to interact in that constructive play.

Jody Bloyer: So it's really, it's, it's a constant and evolving system of support. And it's also really about educating, not not just educators or not just the system. Right. Educators, EAs. Principles. It's, it's educating the community on what those needs are and what those little things are that we can put in. Um, I always talk about a tool belt, right?

Jody Bloyer: We all wear a tool belt and what tools can we help implement into your tool belt so that, that learning, that support, that belonging, that village continues to be able to support our young people and quite frankly, our parents. Community in interacting either intergenerational or with our young people, um, in the work that we're trying to do for them.

Jody Bloyer: What tools can we put in the tool belt? Tool belt? Because the tool at home might be different than the tool we can use at school Might be different than [00:10:00] the tool the coach can use. Might be different than the tool. You know, that business owner that sees three or four kids coming in and maybe hasn't had kids in 20 years around them, what kind of tools can we give them to embrace our young people rather than to push them away or see them as something that they don't understand?

Michael Conner: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and Jody, great points, right? And I want to be able to expand on some of the points that you highlighted. Because it, it, it is, it's resonating now, specifically when we think about our students of who we're educating today, and I really, and this is a, a sub question or a variant from your answer that you provided, is that tool belt.

Michael Conner: And I wanna expand on that tool belt because. We have to be intentional with how we build the capabilities of our practitioners, leaders, and teachers when it comes to [00:11:00] integrating these practices into the instructional dynamic or model or culture, right? I always like to say that we can't have the strategies be mutually exclusive of instruction, but how do we now differentiate?

Michael Conner: In accordance to the specific, I like to say attributes that we're trying to develop within our students'. Perseverance. How do we persevere over complex text as an example. But when we talk about this toolkit, we have to take in consideration who our learners are. And you and I talk about this all the time.

Michael Conner: Generation Z are seniors who are matriculating out of. The pre-K 12 continuum and generation alpha. Generation alpha are radically different. The characteristics are more in the lines of an antithesis of UNI and even generation Z. How do we prepare, how do we prepare our leaders, our [00:12:00] classroom practitioners?

Michael Conner: As you said, the system of support that focuses on the generational needs of Generation Z and generation Alpha.

Jody Bloyer: I, you know, again, big question, right? Because everyone's at a different spot on their journey, right? There are people that are, you have your trailblazers, and then you have those that are kind of settled in.

Jody Bloyer: And so we really have to be able to meet people where they're at too, and understand that, you know, there's going to be productive struggle. So learning something new, you know, if I'm an educator and I'm new to it, you know, it's probably some things that I've been hearing about in my more recent coursework.

Jody Bloyer: If I've been in the system for a while and I know those tried and true things as an in, as an instructor, as a leader in my classroom, or as a leader, as a principal, or wherever that title may be, I'm, I'm going to continue to fall back onto what is comfortable, and not only what's comfortable, but how I learned.

Jody Bloyer: So it's really, really breaking those kind of norms, if you will, those norms that we [00:13:00] feel comfortable in and start having some productive struggle introducing that, you know, young people learn differently. Those, those, uh. Timeframes where they can learn are shorter. You know, that, that instant gratification, those are things that we have to continue to put in front of our adults and remind them that, you know, we have to get them into a lens of that, uh, five-year-old brain or that 15-year-old brain.

Jody Bloyer: What is it that translates from the classroom to real world or translates from the classroom to real life experiences? That is not a mold, that is one size fits all. So how we can get educators to really differentiate what it is they're teaching and also differentiating the toolkit that they use. So, you know, how are we using ai?

Jody Bloyer: How are we, um, productively using a cell phone? How are we then putting those aside and really getting it [00:14:00] into critical thinking and collaboration and communication. It's a blend of those things and really getting people to understand that they're a tool and not something to be scared of is where that productive struggle comes in.

Michael Conner: There you go. And, and to my audience, productive struggle. Right? And I love the examples of how you put it from a capacity standpoint and understanding our students. You know, Jody, I don't think you even realized that. We talked about, we talk about this all the time. You identified key, I like to say attributes and characteristics.

Michael Conner: That Generation Z and generation Alpha display, you talked about short, short attention span, three to five seconds for generation alpha. You talked about that instant gratification, generation Alpha or Generation Z, immediate feedback generation alpha on demand. Okay, good sister, I got you. But one thing you highlighted was this cradle to career and what I love about it is.

Michael Conner: When we talk [00:15:00] about the cradle, right? I always say that we have this over perseveration on the achievement gap. The achievement gap is a symptom because we address it from a pre-K through 12 lens, the achievement gap. But really, if we get to a root cause, it's the preparation gap, how we're preparing students from the cradle.

Michael Conner: So. I want to expand. We could, we could spend a a, a huge amount of time on this, Jody, but Deputy Superintendent of Racine Public Schools. Right. And it's one of the bigger districts in Wisconsin. What you have leveraged was the strategic partnerships that undergirds route round services for students within your community.

Michael Conner: I, I think that's so essential and it's pivotal. It goes back to a phrase that Dr. Pedro Noguera stated when I heard one of his keynote notes. If a student's basic needs are met, they're not going to learn. So you have really started to unpack what those basic needs are through the wraparound [00:16:00] services and community supports that you've had or established.

Michael Conner: As resources for Racine students in this new paradigm of the AC stage of education. Jodi, after COVID-19, what does this look like? Wraparound services for Generation Z, generation alpha, and the future students generation beta.

Jody Bloyer: Yeah. And again, I'm gonna continue to go back to it is not one size fits all.

Jody Bloyer: Right? And that that's, you know, people may see that as a barrier. I see that where the opportunity is, you know, you mentioned, um, that quote, you know, one thing that I often will introduce if I'm meeting with community partners or people or even, you know, within our organization. I always start with that African proverb of, you know, if a child does not feel, you know, that belonging or feel, um, committed from its community, it will surely bill it, burn it down to feel its warmth.

Jody Bloyer: And so I think that's what we experience our, our young people need to feel that sense of belonging. I don't think they know [00:17:00] how to articulate it. And we've created a space where they are more individual. They are more, they don't get out and experience their community as much as maybe you or I did. So we have to, we have to almost think backwards.

Jody Bloyer: So a lot of times we talk about from career to cradle. What is that? Thinking backwards. So by the time they graduate, what have we learned and how can we go back to cradle and redo some things so that that next generation or that next group of young people coming through has a different, um, opportunity.

Jody Bloyer: So it goes back to simple things. It goes back to communication. It goes back to layering support rather than competing for space in that support. And what I mean by that is, you know, here we have the county, we have the city, and we have the school district. Everyone might be doing the same thing. So how do we layer that support instead of compete for that space?

Jody Bloyer: Um, a lot of things we talk about is, um, you know, restorative practices. We have COP houses, which are community [00:18:00] oriented policing spaces where the entire family is served in that space. We have our parent leadership network, so the school district can come in and provide resources and learning and training.

Jody Bloyer: We, we provide opportunities for parents. To experience what their young people are learning. So you're, again, you're that, that, that gap, right? You're kind of closing it because I learned math and English and science and social studies this way, I guess, and young people are learning it very different ways through project-based learning, through different supports, through experiences.

Jody Bloyer: So I think it's really a matter of knowing your community. Understanding your community's needs and then recognizing that, you know, and, and if, if there's one thing that I continuously say to anyone I can, education is not siloed. You don't go to room two 17 and have English anymore. You gotta break down those walls.

Jody Bloyer: And how do you experience your community, your immediate [00:19:00] community, your greater community of, of the Midwest, for my example, or the world through the lens of. English, how do you create spaces where young people learn through those experiences? So, you know, it's, it's, it's a constant conversation and evolution of what we do.

Jody Bloyer: It's not where we decide we're going to support our young people this way, and then we all exhale and fall back on our heels, right? Because on defense and basketball, you know, if you fall on your heels, they're gonna go around you. So we gotta stay on our toes and we gotta continue to reassess what we're doing to make sure that we're hitting the mark now, but more importantly, hitting the mark for their futures.

Jody Bloyer: So it's a constant conversation. It's a constant. Reflection. It's a constant, um, movement towards new things. You know, instead of saying, you know, no, well, why not? Why not us? Why can't we do this? How can this breakdown barriers? Because [00:20:00] we also have a saying here, that all means all. And you know, and, and that's easily verbalized.

Jody Bloyer: It's not easily put in action. So we're constantly challenging ourselves to make sure that all means all. And I mean, and I extend beyond our students, our families, this greater community, those that are going to be competing with them when they graduate from across the globe. What does it mean in the sense of our preparation of young people to do well, which is important to me.

Jody Bloyer: I want them to do well. It's equally important to me, is I want them to do good. So balancing those things through a a 22nd century model is it has to constantly evolve and change because, you know, we can, we can go heavy on academics and they'll do well. We need to go also on that social, emotional, mental wellness side so that they can in their communities and beyond and do good.

Michael Conner: I love that answer. And to my audience, Jody, I say this pretty much every [00:21:00] episode that we use Voices for Excellence as an asynchronous professional learning tool, that our leaders can go back and replay a specific answers or sentiments that our guests on VFE provide. And this is one of those answers where I would go back if I'm a leader.

Michael Conner: Whether it be a site-based leader or even at the district level, is to go back and find or to be able to identify your threads, your strategies that you highlighted to integrate community into the instructional model community, into our schools and community, into our systems. But what I loved about your response, or one of your answers, or part of your answer, was.

Michael Conner: How do we layer support in lieu of competing support? And I just want you to just be able to extend on this shortly, because that is kind of, I would say, the ongoing tension, right? When we try to be able to merge [00:22:00] different entities around our students, where it becomes a competing factor as opposed to layering the support where there's more supports, additional or addendums, I like to say, within our communities.

Michael Conner: How do we now, if I'm a superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, a community advocate, how do I now layer support in lieu of competing support?

Jody Bloyer: Yeah, it's really a competing support is the subsidiary of silos. Once you break those walls down and we can see how we can support each other.

Jody Bloyer: You know, that's, that's, that's where the beauty, and that's where the, you know, that synchronized dance starts, right? You know, our community is our partner. Our legislator is our partner. Our parents are our partners, our grandparents, our neighbors to our schools, our, our partners. And when, when people understand where they can fit into one of those layers of support, they can be, they become [00:23:00] excited about it, right?

Jody Bloyer: If I feel like I'm working really hard over here and I'm trying to do things and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm only influencing X number of people in my, my small community that can, that can become a struggle. Right. And then I'm over here doing the same. And we're competing because we need, we're competing for the same resources.

Jody Bloyer: When we break those walls down and the school is truly part of the community. In a community like mine, we are one of the biggest, largest employers of people in the city. So we are part of the city. We are a part of the county. So when we take that, that, uh, you know, stool and we see the three legs of it, the county, the city, and in, at least in my community and the school district, and we see how we can come together and then we layer in those neighbors, we layer in parents, we layer in the business partners.

Jody Bloyer: We layer in city government, county government, we layer in our police [00:24:00] officers and our firefighters and our, um, retired teachers. And when we start layering them in, you know, and we compact that down, it becomes very solid and strong so that we speak a common language, which is very important. We speak a common language, and then we also can provide uniformed resources for any and all students.

Jody Bloyer: From those that people perceive are excelling at their greatest, to those that really struggle in what ar ever area we define, we know that we can then bring them to a equitable level of opportunity so that everyone has that chance here. And it's a, it's a constant struggle. Are we there yet? No, we are constantly working on it.

Jody Bloyer: It's constantly part of our conversation. I go out in the community and there are people that still haven't been in a school or one of my schools for 20, 30 years, and I always invite them to the table and then I always go back to their table as well. Our faith-based community, huge partner of ours. So you layer it in [00:25:00] so that no matter where a young person or family goes, they know that there, there's a system there that at least has the right language to support them.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And Jody, can you just provide my audience context, right? Because one thing I want to just be able to, let us say, RA Racine is an urban district, and can you provide those specific numbers, contexts so that we'll, we're able to say that or see that? Wow, Jody, we're, we're talking about a large urban district here.

Michael Conner: Go ahead.

Jody Bloyer: Yeah, so, you know, uh, just about 16,000 students. Probably, uh, two thirds bipoc and one third Caucasian. Um, most of our educators are, um. Caucasian, probably female. I don't have that exact, but probably our, uh, socioeconomic status. Um, we probably have a 70, 80, 85, 90% free and reduced lunch rate depending on, um, what school they're in.

Jody Bloyer: We're a very much part of that [00:26:00] manufacturing space, so when a lot of man manufacturing went away, so did a lot of the jobs. So we're really in this space of rebuilding. We have a beautiful lakefront. It's generational here. People stay here, um, their families stay here. You know, we have, we have all of the beauty of a urban environment and we have all of the difficulties of a, of an urban environment.

Jody Bloyer: And the public school system, you know, is that place that centers us and we do really well in some spaces and we really are still working to continue to improve in others.

Michael Conner: Yeah, and great context with that because wanted to provide that to my audience that what you're doing and how you're, I like to say surgically interfacing the, the, the community wraparound services, overlaying them.

Michael Conner: Because to my audience, when I have private conversations with Jodi, I'm like. Jodi, how are you now creating that alignment with the city entity and the, and, and, and the learning organization and [00:27:00] all. You guys are working in this synergistic manner. How did you do that?

Jody Bloyer: I can give you one example. Um, and, uh, you know, this 2019, um, there was a need because again, you have your family services and you have your police, and you have your community, and you have your schools.

Jody Bloyer: And I saw a real need that, again, we weren't all talking. So in 2019. On my own. I started the Edge task force, which is eliminating drugs and gangs through education. And so we started out with six people that, you know, I started telling my vision to and what it was, and if we could get together once a month and really talk about young people that were struggling in the school and outside of the school, and we created bylaws, everything, whatever.

Jody Bloyer: Come now to today's day and age, we have about 50 people that join once a month. Um, and it's all about support. It is not an I got you kind of group, but it is all about support and how can we layer that support. Maybe it's a parent coming out of car incarceration or in [00:28:00] new incarceration, and what supports do they need.

Jody Bloyer: We call it handle with care. If there's something that happens, maybe there was a fire in a community or maybe there was. Just young people that are struggling or, Hey, I'm seeing this family more at our food pantry, and how can we make sure that they have what they need for the holidays? And we get together once a month and we really collaboratively communicate about our students that need and our families that need that strongest safety net.

Jody Bloyer: Well, from that was also then I wrote up a, um, job description real quick when the, you know, you gotta, you gotta hit while the arm's hot, right? So I drew up a, um, a job description. And so we now also in our, our schools that have the most significant needs, there's five of them. There's three high schools and two middle schools.

Jody Bloyer: We now have 10 community connectors. They are people from our community who may have struggled through a system or the system, you know, however people define it. I don't like to put labels on people, but that's how people see it. And they might have [00:29:00] had their struggles and that they've, they've come through it and they've come to be great contributing members of our, of our community.

Jody Bloyer: They are now our community connectors. There's two of them in each of those schools, and they bridge that gap all day long. So we have that meeting. We talk about it, what are their needs? And then they bridge the gap. Because let's face it, we have some of our parents whose experience in our school system was not a positive one.

Jody Bloyer: So there's a wall built up. So now how do they come into a school that maybe they didn't feel welcome in with their own children? So we try to break those walls down through our community connectors. We're always in our community centers. We'll go to the home if there's something that tragically happens, it could be 1, 2, 3 in the morning.

Jody Bloyer: We get a call, we all get an alert. We go out to the space to try to keep violence from occurring or to support them in the moment, and then we can support them the next day at school. Um, so it's, it's, it's evolving to a point where there's not a time or a space that a young person or a [00:30:00] family in our community cannot be centered in some level of support.

Jody Bloyer: Not just support where we're giving you fish, but we're teaching you to fish.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And Jody, what's great about this is that I know from your work and how inspirational you are. That six number from six to 50 exponentially grew because people wanted to follow your vision and how you communicated the vision of how you're supporting your students.

Michael Conner: It's this panoramic view, all hands on deck. And it goes back to the old saying as they say, Jody. It takes a village to raise a, to raise a child, and that is a village approach to it. That's why I wanted to be able to expand on that for my audience because it's not only so impactful and strategic relationships, people forget how important relationships, community relationships are because not only do I see you in in school, I see you in the community.

Michael Conner: I better not mess up. [00:31:00] But I wanna go on now to a different vertical that we talk about all the time, which is 22nd century design innovation. Right? Jodi? Now of course you, you knew I was gonna go down this route, you knew, but Jodi, I, and, and again, I want to go back to a personal conversation that we had and it extended on it.

Michael Conner: I was like, yep. I'm gonna ask this as a question. We have this balance, right? Of this dissonance between disruption and continuity, me and you talk about this all the time. Phase in, phase out, scale, systematize. It, it, it, it's, it's, again, it is a, it's this great paradox in education now. Now the lights and camera are on you, and it's not a private conversation putting you on the spot, girl.

Michael Conner: So, JB, what does this balance, disruption, and continuity [00:32:00] look like in a learning organization? 'cause you're experiencing it now, this transformative process. To move towards 22nd design and development. How do we now manage this balance, this paradox between disruption and continuity?

Jody Bloyer: Yeah. And it, and you know, and it's kind of like you talk out of both sides of your mouth when you talk about this, right?

Jody Bloyer: In one sense, there's an urgency and we don't have time to wait. And we have to, our, our, our, our children can't spend another year of us preparing, right? We have to be ready to kind of jump into the far. On the other hand, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. So, you know, and I'm in the Midwest, so we have a tendency to, you know, kind of take things a little slower.

Jody Bloyer: Right. I was trying, you know, when I, when we talk about this, I try to think about a way that I can sum it up, you know? And you know, one of the things I thought of is I think you have to be open to the why and safe in the try. So, you know, when I, when I say that, what I mean is [00:33:00] that, you know, sometimes we just have to maybe throw caution to the wind and we have to be open to the, open to the why.

Jody Bloyer: Now, that doesn't mean that we try everything that's brought our way. What that means is intentionally we use our best common sense, our best practices, our best vetting processes, and we're open to the why. Then when you have people willing to do that, they have to feel safe in the track. So I'm going to try this.

Jody Bloyer: I'm gonna give it everything I have. We're gonna provide you the professional learning. We're going to take those chances and maybe have a loud classroom or maybe utilize that phone, and I might not even feel a hundred percent confident in the as it or with it as the facilitator of that classroom.

Jody Bloyer: We're going to embrace it and we're gonna reflect on it. So I think it's really about being open to the why safe in the try. Then building upon those successes, you know, and it's hard because it is a balance. You have to be able to still, in my opinion, have that [00:34:00] time in that classroom learning where there's that direct kind of human to human space of critical thinking, of dialogue, of understanding, a why, of digging deeper.

Jody Bloyer: In addition, you have to allow young people, or all people to explore the, the different opportunities there are to think of things that we would never think of in that direct instruction kind of conversation. And to understand that their experiences have been different. And because they're different doesn't mean they're not right.

Jody Bloyer: So, you know, providing that platform of, you know, one might call it messy, even one might call it, you know, not instructionally like. Scaffolded in the exact way that you want it scaffolded. However, for me, it is true learning. It's the messiness of true learning and understanding that, you know, you may fail up, you may have something that didn't go exactly how you wanted it to.

Jody Bloyer: However, that exposure to that kind of learning, that kind of engagement, [00:35:00] that opportunity to use those skills, that the, you know, the Gen Alpha is, is starting to, you know, do. It's, it's some of the best facilitation and teaching that can occur in a classroom and when those walls come down, bring in people that are experts and allow them to contribute to your classroom as well.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. Jody, great answer to my audience. This is another one to play it back and I want to show the direct correlation. Jody, I'm laughing because you know, I'm gonna give a research scientific base alignment to this, but Jodi. I, I love the phrase open to the why safe in the try. And this is so true because this is 22nd century learning.

Michael Conner: This is the indicators within the systems domain frame and the learner domain frame of my 22nd century systems, uh, learner framework, the messiness of true learning, that's 22nd century learning. And what, and, and [00:36:00] in the example. If you wanna see that persistency of failure in multiple opportunities of it and a quote unquote using that, because that's kind of like a word.

Michael Conner: We can describe it anyway, but that's the word that, you know, people are using in alignment with the 22nd century vernacular. I'm going to, I want to change that. Right. But always look at I, I looked at my son. I'm gonna use this as an example because it aligns to the learner attributes and the characteristics of generation Alpha.

Michael Conner: And I was like, okay, I wanna look at this in this lens, in this attribute lens of generation alpha. And when I saw my son in about five or six, I don't know, it was a like a married of them are on together playing roadblocks. And they're navigating together, working in this collaborative [00:37:00] context where they're talking to each other through, whether it be the cell phone or whether it be through the I iPad.

Michael Conner: I don't know. It was one of them. I guess I'm getting a little too old. Right, right. Is what that, but when I, Jodi, when I saw them navigating through the nuances, trying out things multiple times, did not experience success. Went at it and with a different strategic strategy and approach and the messiness of where they started and how long it took them to get there.

Michael Conner: Our classrooms need to emulate those dynamics because that's a part of their learner attributes of generation alpha, and this. Absolutely. So now that messiness needs to convert into our classrooms where it's okay to open to the why and safe in the try. And when I, when I heard that, I started talking about, I started thinking about risk [00:38:00] management that we have to be able to do, right?

Michael Conner: This elevated structure, semi, semi-structured experimentation that focuses on learning and scaling, learning and scaling. Learning and scaling, then scaling to systematize, Jody. Excellent, excellent, excellent explanation of the necessary practices of experimentation and understanding the risk, but scaling to learn and scaling to systematize.

Michael Conner: Amazing with that. But again, like you said, you trademarked it open to the why, but safe. In the try. Now I wanna Go ahead Joey. I, I

Jody Bloyer: wanna say too, in Racine, without even knowing it, you know, 10 years ago, um, we started out in our high schools with a, uh, it's a, a, um, academy model. So our young people started to do high school through the lens of a career.

Jody Bloyer: So if I'm in a career pathway, a biomedical [00:39:00] career pathway, everything I do in that career, in that in my education is centered and aligned around biomedical opportunities, opportunities to engage in that career, um, have people come in, do project-based learning around it. My math, english, science, and social studies is embedded in that.

Jody Bloyer: And then I get to actually go out as a youth apprentice and experience it as a job. So I think we opened the door a little bit to something that was maybe unconventional that way. I mean, we were very structured in it. It's very structured how we do it and how we approach it. What I do think it did was open teachers up to saying, okay, we can, I can teach English through a different lens and still get done those core, um, learning components that I need to get done.

Jody Bloyer: Right. So I think that that opens us up just a little bit more than maybe something someplace that has been very, um, traditional in their teaching and learning practices for our, our educators. To really have that opportunity to be [00:40:00] safe in the try. 'cause we've given 'em little dabbles of it without really knowing what we were doing back then.

Jody Bloyer: Um, except knowing it was good and right for our community, good and right for young people when they actually felt connected to their learning and something they truly loved. So it's really taking that too and replicating it to a 22nd century learning model. Right. To your platform that you talk about all the time, disrupting kind of those beliefs or those systems that we have, and giving our young people another layer of that kind of messiness in terms of their ability to learn and grow.

Michael Conner: Absolutely well stated, Jody. Well, well, well stated. And the disruption has to happen. And again, I like to say creating that polarity between disruption and continuity, and that is, that is more of an oxymoron. Yes. A paradox that we're living, but the alignment. Is right in [00:41:00] front of us is where we just have to look at the characteristics and attributes, the learner attributes of our students to design.

Michael Conner: And this is another conversation that we can be able to have design versus lesson planning, designing instructional tasks that invites that level of rigor and that messiness where it's not just a binary question, a yes or a no, but the gray. The multitude of being adaptive is okay in learning. But Jody, this is the last question.

Michael Conner: Now, I'm gonna be honest with you, Jody, this is, this has been a great, great, great episode. Great, great, great conversation and discussion, but. Out of all the conversations we've had, we talked about education, and I'm talking about some of like the questions that, Hey, you know, what about this and this? Oh, this?

Michael Conner: Yeah. [00:42:00] Now I'm limiting you to only three words. This is the only time I'm ever gonna limit you to three words. I know I probably will succeed in limiting you to three words, but I am absolutely going to try good system. But JB what three words? I know you're not gonna listen to me, but what three words do you want today's audience to leave this episode regarding the 22nd Century education model in this new paradigm of the AC stage of education, which is after COVID-19?

Jody Bloyer: So, I'm a, I'm, I am a, I am a people person, so my first word has to be grace. Because I, I do think that for those that, you know, again, are on different spaces in their journey, it's not for us to judge. It's for us to bring forward. So there's a grace that has to come along with that. And, um, I think sometimes, you know, um, that's, that's, that's missing in what we do.

Jody Bloyer: Sometimes we have a [00:43:00] demand. And a demand, um, definitely doesn't make the safe, the, the try feel safe, right? So I would definitely say grace, commitment. You know, all of the things that we've talked about and, and you know this all too well, um, it takes time. Our jobs have never been our careers, our passions have never been a nine to five.

Jody Bloyer: So it takes a commitment. It takes bringing people along. It takes being open to conversation. It takes being open to an idea that might not be yours. So it takes a commitment, and the commitment is greater than you. The commitment is of the community, and that takes work. Takes breaking down barriers. That takes breaking down longstanding systems.

Jody Bloyer: It takes, um, commitment. And then I, I think a true belief. So I have a true belief in this community. I have a true belief in this young people. I have a true belief in the beauty of what will be, not what could be. And I have a true belief in the [00:44:00] people that I work with and that I work among. And, um, that is.

Jody Bloyer: That is a gift. I know it. I try, I try not to take that gift for granted, um, because they truly believe the same way I do. We have been very blessed and fortunate to have people in this community truly embrace the try. I feel very grateful for that. It's something that keeps me here. It keeps me driven because that belief extends into that commitment.

Jody Bloyer: Also, you know, again, helps us with that grace of people that are coming along. I don't feel like I'm pulling people along. I feel like I'm getting to push people, um, when that is a, a very, um, different feeling. So those are three words. Um, but you know that I have an umbrella word. We've talked enough,

Michael Conner: I, I was I and Jody, if I could interject I right after your three words, I was gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna add the fourth word because.

Michael Conner: Everybody in the Midwest, everybody across [00:45:00] the country, everybody in RAC scene knows that you e you even say this to me, you gotta say the word. This is the fourth.

Jody Bloyer: It's the fourth. Uh, don't forget the joy because it has to be joy. There has to be joy in what you do. There has to be a joy in your convictions.

Jody Bloyer: There has to be a joy in your commitment, and there has to be a joy in your belief. So the umbrella word is joy. And I think that if more people could get to that point of, of true joy, these other things would, um, still be difficult and challenging. And there would be productive struggle. But I think that we would do it in a much more unified way.

Michael Conner: Absolutely grace, commitment, and belief, but what you tell me every day, make sure you have joy in what you do. Jody Bloyer, thank you for joining me on Voices. Thank you, mc. Excellence. No, I appre. I appreciate you. Now, I'm sure that there are gonna be a lot of people out there that want to be able to contact you, expand on some of your answers.

Michael Conner: Expand [00:46:00] on this notion of bringing in community partners, wraparound services, how you're able to balance this ambiguous notion of continuity and disruption or even what joy looks like. How would they be able to contact you?

Jody Bloyer: They can contact me anytime on uh, my email. It's Jody with a Y-J-O-D-Y dot B-L-O-Y-E-R at RUSD as in dog.org.

Michael Conner: Thank you, Jody. And again, like I said, I'm very biased and subjective of your leadership, how you impact kids, how you impact families, how you have intentional relationships with families. And I tell you this from everybody I talk to, Jody, they absolutely just love what you're doing with our kids. Thank you so much for your commitment.

Michael Conner: Thank you so much for your grace. And moreover, thank you so much for the joy that you bring to the field.

Jody Bloyer: Yeah. Thank you. And you know, you did talk about things being sometimes ambiguous, right? I think that's [00:47:00] why the work you are doing and your platform and your strategic alignment is so important, right?

Jody Bloyer: Because again, talk about bringing something together. Culture and structure and your structure allows for a culture to be built that will impact our, um, generations to come. So we don't do any of this in silos, including across the country or the world. Um, we have to do it together. So I appreciate all the structure you're bringing to it and the.

Jody Bloyer: The awesome systems that you allow us to use so we can continue building in our school districts.

Michael Conner: To my, to my audience, I did not pay Jody to save that. That is the, that we got it on recording. Yes. You said that live and you can't go back from that, my friend. I love you jb. Thank you so much for your support and everything.

Michael Conner: Like I said, you're one of my good dear, dear friends, I appreciate you, appreciate everything that you do.

Jody Bloyer: I appreciate you too. Thank you.

Michael Conner: And [00:48:00] on that note, everybody onward and upward. Have a good one.