matthew worwood: As we kick off season 12, we are asking a simple but essential question. We say that we want schools to be prepared for the real world, but what does it actually look like to design a school around that priority? In this first episode of the season, we explore how the Big Picture Schools network has built a model that aligns values with practice and what that means for teaching, learning, and creativity.

matthew worwood: Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Ward,

Cyndi Burnett: and my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

matthew worwood: This is the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast.

Cyndi Burnett: On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.

matthew worwood: We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives.

matthew worwood: Of creativity,

Cyndi Burnett: all with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

matthew worwood: So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett: Today we welcome to the show Carlos Moreno, who is a teacher, principal, a director, and now a Chief Executive Officer, a proud native New Yorker.

Cyndi Burnett: Carlos is a passionate educator, trailblazer committed to supporting school and district leaders to create high quality non-traditional schools designed to tackle systemic issues related to equity and education. He currently serves as executive Director for Big Picture Learning, a nonprofit organization that since 1995, has developed over 150 such schools in the United States and throughout the world.

Cyndi Burnett: He also co-founded and leads the Deeper Learning Equity Fellowship and partnership with the International Network for Public Schools, and is the author of the book Finding Your Leadership Soul. Welcome to the show, Carlos. Uh,

Carlos Moreno: thank you for having me. Thank you for having me, Cindy and Matt.

Cyndi Burnett: So Carlos, you have been in many different roles, and so from this systems level vantage point, where do you see the greatest constraints in traditional public education models, and where do you see the greatest untapped creative potential?

Carlos Moreno: I’ll start by saying that. Uh, like most people working in public education are deeply creative human beings, right? Teachers, advisors, counselors, principals, some of the most inventive folks I have met and that I know. Uh, and I think that the tragedy is that the systems that they work inside of often don’t trust them.

Carlos Moreno: Right. And, and I, and the, the greatest constraint in my mind, and based on what I’ve seen is time combined with compliance. Right. We, and what we’ve done, we’ve organized schools around coverage, pacing guides, testing windows, uh, bell schedules. Uh, everything is chopped into pieces, but when you compress time and then layer on fear, quite honestly, right?

Carlos Moreno: Fear of scores, fear of being labeled a, a quote unquote, failing school, fear of deviating or deviation, like creativity becomes this risky thing. And, and when creativity is risky, people default to survival, right? We’ve seen that even happen in some of our own work, and I’d say another. Big constraint is that we, we confuse standardization with equity sometimes.

Carlos Moreno: Uh, oftentimes somewhere along the way equity became about everyone getting the same exact thing at the same time in the same way, rather than everyone getting what they need to thrive and framing, squeezes out. You know, that type of framing squeezes out. Imagination the ability to think and just, and be free within.

Carlos Moreno: And well, we what? You know, I know that Dr. Bettina love has coined as freedom, dreaming in the midst of, um, in the midst of education. Uh, but, but the untapped potential, it’s, I think it’s enormous and it lives in relationships and, and local context. So when schools are allowed to root learning in young people’s lives, their questions, their curiosities, their, their neighborhoods, their their histories, that’s when we’ve seen that creativity just explodes.

Carlos Moreno: Like the moment we stop asking, how do we get students to fit school or fit this school? And start asking how do we shape around or shape a school around young people? Like if things that opens up. And it’s, and it’s really a big part of the genesis of Big Picture Learning. And the potential is also just honestly is that students themselves, it is the students themselves.

Carlos Moreno: They, we wildly underestimate how curious, how capable and how creative young people are when they’re, when they’re trusted with real work. Real problems and real audiences. Uh, and that, that just kind, kind of gives them purpose mm-hmm. Proximity to the world and adults who believe in them and, and they, they just surprise us every time when we do that.

Cyndi Burnett: Mm.

matthew worwood: I got a very quick follow up question around the Yeah. You know, the, your experience as a teacher, a principal, district leader, and now CEO, you spoke about fear just outta curiosity. Are there different senses of fear within these roles? Does the fear increase as you kind of go up the administrative ladder, or do you feel that the fear is perhaps most prominent within a teaching and learning environment such as the classroom?

Carlos Moreno: I would say that, you know, the system that I grew up within, within Big Picture system as a teacher, right.

Carlos Moreno: I do know that the folks at the system level were the ones that were ensuring and trying to ensure that we had the coverage, protection, and safety to continue to be creative and support us in the ability to do that. Now, when I was no longer working within, uh, let’s say a big picture system or.

Carlos Moreno: I’d say in a lot of ways, exposed as a professional to, to the other systems, it, it has been a trickle down effect, right? So when you have system leaders who are being held accountable from perhaps the state or whomever, right? Whatever the body is, and it just trickles down and it becomes this, this, this practice of compliance.

Carlos Moreno: I can’t say that there’s one over the other, but it definitely, I don’t believe it starts at the school level. It’s definitely at the system level.

matthew worwood: It’s, it’s a tough one that isn’t it, because, you know, I, I always wrestle with this because the funding, there’s always funding that typically is coming outside of the school, particularly in public, public education.

matthew worwood: So, you know. Do you think there’s a slight disconnect with not having enough people with the, the background, the education background, crafting up these policies?

Carlos Moreno: It’s fascinating because when,

Carlos Moreno: and. Indirectly mentioning, uh, folks with. Who perhaps aren’t educators right? Or are not from within the system? A big picture co-founded Dennis Lipkey wrote a book, um, which was the original, which was the big picture. Um, education is everyone’s business.

matthew worwood: Mm-hmm. Right.

Carlos Moreno: And, and for us as, as a, as a school design that works in tandem and in partnership with local community folks who we do want, um, young people to be exposed to and be able to learn from people within the community.

Carlos Moreno: Um, folks that perhaps are not educators, but we also know that those are the folks that could also be some of the most powerful teachers for young people. Right.

matthew worwood: Mm-hmm.

Carlos Moreno: So, so I, I, I, I wanna separate your question into two parts, right? Like. I think that folks who are not trained educators can be phenomenal educators for young people and have places there’s a space and a way for them to contribute to the lives and to the learning of young people.

Carlos Moreno: Now, in terms of, I feel like what I’m hearing, Matt, is that there are some people in the system who are making decisions. Who are not educators and who don’t know and are just like kind of pushing buttons and just are looking at it from a business standpoint. Is that, is that about right?

matthew worwood: I, I, I question.

Carlos Moreno: Right?

matthew worwood: I, I think so. I think it’s more of that disconnect, bridging the gap between research, bridging the gap between goals for the economy, bridging the gap between identifying the skills that we think everyone must graduate with, and then actually being on the ground and developing those skill sets.

matthew worwood: Yeah.

Carlos Moreno: Understood. And, and, and I and I, and I agree with those comments. So without question, I think that when the decisions are being made with enforced students, those. And the experiences that students are having, ultimately, that the educators, the folks who are most proximate to those students should be involved in the design and the decision making.

Carlos Moreno: I’ll also share, and what you’ll hear from me on this conversation is I’m a firm believer that multiple things can be true. Right. So you could have folks who are very passionate, well intended, who are come at, come at it from a perspective and want to do good, and want to be helpful and believe that their way is the right way and.

Carlos Moreno: Can also do harm, right? In that, in that same vein, and it’s about the, the leadership, right? Like whoever is the, or the few decision makers that make that call to consistently ask the question, who is not in this room? Who should be in this conversation, and what might we be missing here? Right? And I’ve seen spaces where that happens, and I’ve seen spaces where that’s completely disregarded, right?

Carlos Moreno: So I think I, I, I, I think it’s a, you know, it’s, it’s, it, in some cases it can be a tale of two cities, two communities, two states, right? Like, you just don’t, you, you know, it varies.

matthew worwood: So, in, in regard to this, we’re obviously, we’re, we’re a creativity podcast.

Carlos Moreno: Yes.

matthew worwood: Is where, how does creativity fit in here?

matthew worwood: Because. We know that industry, even if they don’t necessarily use the words creativity, we know we want people who are gonna go out, solve problems, innovate, and, and help our economy grow and prosper, and ideally also hope the individuals and citizens go on to be wonderful citizens as well.

Carlos Moreno: Yeah, it’s what often happens is this constraint of time, right?

Carlos Moreno: And, and, and even, and even the, the license for that, that freedom, right? Um, and it’s creativity and service of what, right? Like we wanna be creative. Like some people might be like, oh, you have art class. That’s a space so you can be creative. Yes. And what is the applicability to what young people are figuring out, thinking about engaging in to their real, like, you know, for us, we’re always gonna talk about their community, their real world, their aspirations when they leave our doors.

Carlos Moreno: Mm-hmm. And I always feel like this, there’s a, this is where there’s a space for, for industry, right? Like for, for professionals, for other people, right? Like in across industries, there’s folks are engaged in creative thinking, redesign and, and thinking outside of the norm and what is now. Um, and oftentimes in most systems, I would say the outside.

Carlos Moreno: Outside world, right? That’s not within the school, isn’t aren’t. Aren’t intentionally being let in, right? Aren’t invited in, right? Aren’t, aren’t treated or brought in as partners in thinking about, Hey, this is what this is. We’re trying to prepare young people for X. This is what we’re good at. This is what we know we can do, but.

Carlos Moreno: Here are some areas that we know that in terms of industry and industry and interest that our young people have, there’s a space for exposure. And that’s honestly, I think if it’s a first step that I would say is like just exposing young people to other things that beyond, beyond what they know at that moment.

Cyndi Burnett: And I, I think what’s so impressive about this is getting students at the high school level exposed to things that they’re interested in and passionate about and they wanna learn about is you really, um, you’re giving them these lifelong learning. Skills to really wanna continue learning. And that’s one things I find interesting about this model.

Cyndi Burnett: And as you know, as I mentioned before we started, um, wonderful colleague who listens to our podcast, bring on our. One of our CEOs, Carlos, and she is a vice principal at a big picture school, which I have and taught with some of the students at that school. And what I found amazing is they were working on TED Talks and trying to uncover what they were interested in to talk about for their, their little TEDx talks.

Cyndi Burnett: And I shouldn’t say little, they were, I think that’s amazing that high school have this opportunity to, in high school and I.

Cyndi Burnett: How this fits in with the standard public education, because this school is within Buffalo. Our Buffalo public schools here, um, are not doing so well. In fact, they just incentivized public Buffalo public schools students, um, with the. Two to $500 if they come to school, um, that they do a lottery for students who come to school.

Cyndi Burnett: And I, I find this like gobsmacking. I’m like, are we solving the wrong problem here? Because I would much rather see kids have an opportunity to explore their interests versus giving them money to go to school. Right. So here’s my question. Sorry. This is

Carlos Moreno: one. Yeah, yeah. No, no. I appreciate that framing though.

Cyndi Burnett: My, my question is. Why aren’t all schools like this? How do you fit the big picture schools into the standards so that you can be public education, so that you can offer this to students of, of all, you know, different demographics and, you know, in, in different environments so that they can explore the things that they’re really interested in because it’s so important.

Cyndi Burnett: But I just don’t think that people see that in the framing of our current standards.

Carlos Moreno: So we have a little over 130 schools across 30 plus states in the US and then we have a growing, um, international, um, network of schools that we’re really proud of. And many folks will look at us and say, you’ve been around 30 years.

Carlos Moreno: How come you only have a hundred and something schools in the us? Which is fast, which is a fascinating question to me. Um.

matthew worwood: Just to, just, just to throw it out there. I don’t think it’s fascinating. I think that’s crazy. So, so when I, when, when I was looking at it, I was like, that is a lot of schools that you have a across the country and the fact you’re expanding beyond.

matthew worwood: So I don’t know if that’s what you were saying was a fascinating question, but I would just say that I think is an incredible success to have that many schools running successfully.

Carlos Moreno: I’m gonna let you be my Luther on in the background. When I say things that are a little more pc, I’m gonna let you, Matt, just go in and just say exactly, well, maybe what I’m thinking.

Carlos Moreno: I appreciate that and our, our hope. Our desire was always to be able to demonstrate that this type of design and school model can, can be successful in a variety of context as in all spaces, uh, for all types of young people, right? All types of learners. Um, but we do get it. It’s, and, and I have personally been in conversations with chief executives of school systems.

Carlos Moreno: In their office, talking with them, explaining our designer model, letting them know where we are, the successes that we’ve been having, being truthful about the challenges and the, you know, how, you know, how hard it is, um, without saying how hard it is. Right. And I’ve had a, a number of superintendents specifically look me in my face and be like, that is incredibly hard to do.

Carlos Moreno: And I’m like. Damn right. It’s really hard to do. Right. And anything that’s worth doing is gonna take some effort and redesign. And especially just because it’s difficult, it’s not the reason not to do it.

Cyndi Burnett: Hmm.

Carlos Moreno: So, and, and it’s, and it, it, and it’s a transfer of power, right. Of control. There’s a little bit of that, right?

Carlos Moreno: In terms of the existing conventional education model is focused on control of students. Know exactly where they are, what they’re working on in any, in any given moment. This is what they’re learning. This is how we’re gonna assess them, and this is how we’re gonna make the decision if they’re ready to move on to the next piece.

Carlos Moreno: Versus that being able to be a slightly more fluid conversation. Because in most industries, and again, in thinking about the real world, it’s more. It’s more of the latter, right? We’re able to talk about the goals that we’re setting, especially as we’re talking about like older, older grades. I wanna, I wanna draw that distinction, right?

Carlos Moreno: We are, we, we operate in the K to K to 12 space, but our sweet spot has been six to 12, right? So as, as young people are in and approaching adolescents and wanting and looking and, and deserving of more freedom and space to just to, to. To, to, to think more freely and communicate and voice their interest.

Carlos Moreno: Right. And, and push back and engage in that, that, that beautiful bidirectional just kind of like exercise of like, yeah. I don’t agree. Um, that is, I think, highly uncomfortable for a lot of folks.

matthew worwood: Hmm. Um,

Carlos Moreno: um, and at the same time. I think here’s a, here’s a multiple things being true. There is, what we are seeing is a growing segment of folks that are seeing our schools, that are seeing, and not just our schools, but schools that are, and models that are much more innovative and saying the type of thinkers and, and students, um.

Carlos Moreno: That these schools are, are producing, right? Or helping to, to develop is, is what we need in this world. And, but it’s still at, feels like it’s at a crawl pace, right? It’s not at the speed that we would think, like, you know, again, we’re 30 years in, right? Um, and, and if you think of schools like Montessori schools, like they’ve been, they’ve been going on for forever.

Carlos Moreno: Forever. So, um, yeah. I, I, I, I, what I have heard is, you know, it’s hard to do. You know, and what I, I know it has been, it’s been a fear of, of losing control of what is happening in the school and not knowing where, where things might go.

matthew worwood: You know, I’d like to build on this a little bit because I, I’ve referenced this on the show before.

matthew worwood: I used to work at the Center for 21st Century Skills about 15 years ago now, and we, we was, uh, working with about 10 Connecticut high schools. Then we received some funding from Obama’s investing in innovation grants. So we was to create this Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which was to go, you know, and, and.

matthew worwood: Put our, our program as almost like a school within a school, and we’d identify a specific cohort from ninth grade and they’ll go through it. And we would in essence, provide that curriculum for those STEM subjects. And one of the challenges I know we experienced was that it, the model just. Needed to be tweaked to such an extent at different schools that it was almost like everybody was doing their own thing.

matthew worwood: So I was wondering if with within your model, do you find that same challenge with the fact that you’re having to tweak and modify certain things and which of the values that you try to maintain? So even as you’re modifying and tweaking things, what are those main values? You say, ah, ah, and, and you ha this is what we need to practice.

matthew worwood: It can, it can be modified, but these are the values and behaviors that we’re nurturing.

Carlos Moreno: I appreciate the question. So with without, with, without question. Depending on the context, community circumstance, um, uh, in place, there, there are certain, um, factors that we need to take into consideration when, when establishing a partnership with a school district, a system, um, you know, the big picture.

Carlos Moreno: Design has 10 distinguishers, right? That when they were established 30 years ago and you looked at them, they’re like, oh my gosh, these are so innovative. Like all 10 of these in a school. That would be amazing. And now if we look at them, I think in most, most cases, most of them, we’d be like, yeah, these, these are absolutely necessary and best practices.

Carlos Moreno: Any school that is doing that are doing some of these, or most of these should, and really valuing them. Um. You know, it’s, it’s better. It’s better. It’s, they’re, they’re highly, highly better than, than than the schools that maybe we attended. And we do have four very, um, what I would call high lever distinguishers, that for us, are pretty non-negotiable around the design.

Carlos Moreno: How they look and shape and exist and breathe within a school is slightly different. But therefore, so there’s the, the space around the one student at a time. Ensuring that every young person has an opportunity to voice and communicate a little bit about the things that they’re interested in, the things that they’re cur curious in.

Carlos Moreno: There’s an opportunity for the school to connect deeply with that person’s family and guardians and community in some sort of way that gives us a different entry point into that. Who that student, that young person is, and it’s important for us to know that student well. So there has to be a space and opportunity to do that.

Carlos Moreno: And the way that also happens, the second. In terms of ingredients of secret sauce would be that the advisory system, um, now a lot of schools would sadly, um, state that they have advisory systems, but they’re in many ca in a and sadly, in a lot of cases, they’re nothing more than a glorified homeroom.

Carlos Moreno: That’s not what, this is not a place where you take attendance and make announcements. This is actually a place where you build community with young people and they build community with each other. Right. It’s a, it’s, it’s, I meant, I referenced that bidirectional kind of relationship that’s important between adults and young people.

Carlos Moreno: If you know you have one, one adult that’s got you. And is with you for the duration of however you’re in those doors in that school and is gonna ride with you. That is, that is, I think, as a former advisor, I’d say that’s transformational and actually leads to lifelong relationships.

matthew worwood: Hmm.

Carlos Moreno: Um, the, the lead, the learning in the real world.

Carlos Moreno: Okay. And we’re about experiential hands-on learning. So ensuring that, you know, in some of our schools as early as, you know, sixth and seventh graders, they’re going out on a regular basis. Whether individually or in small groups, but learning in the real world and being exposed to, to, to industries and adults who are, you know, you know, that are doing things that they, they’re curious about, right?

Carlos Moreno: Maybe they don’t know exactly what they wanna do, but here’s an opportunity for exposure. What are the things that. That, that connect to their interests that they’re doing. What are the, what are, how are the disciplines built into, how are the different content areas built into the work that they do? Um, and again, our hope is that a graduate of one of our high schools is that, you know.

Carlos Moreno: Has a, has a much better sense than they would otherwise around what it is that they’d like to do next, right? Because they’ve had that experience and they’ve talked to people in the field. And then the fourth ingredient would be just an opportunity to, to present publicly your learning, right? It’s a bit of a defense of your learning.

Carlos Moreno: How do you, how do you talk about what you’ve learned, right? Mm-hmm. There’s a, there’s a space for. You know, your more conventional summative and, and formative assessments. It’s like that, that gives you some data, right?

matthew worwood: Mm-hmm.

Carlos Moreno: But this an opportunity to, to engage in a conversation, talk about your work, talk about the things that you’re proudest around, talked about what you’ve learned.

matthew worwood: Mm-hmm.

Carlos Moreno: Um, also have an opportunity to be, to be challenged around the work, right? And defend your work in this public way. Um. What we’ve seen is students take those very, very, very seriously. Right. In terms of, um, and there’s a lot of pride, right? Because of the audience. Um, so for us, those are the four right Now.

Carlos Moreno: What might change in terms of context to your question, Matt, is like cadences of those right? For us. You know, exhibitions should happen four times a year. In some places they happen twice a year. Right. Because of some design challenges, scheduling challenges that we talked about. Advisory is a pretty regular thing for us.

Carlos Moreno: It can’t, it can’t just happen once a week. It needs to happen multiple times where they needs to be and they need to be significant time, you know?

Carlos Moreno: They just need to be significant places, placement in the schedule, right? They, they, they, like 15 minutes is not an advisory, 20 minutes is not an advisory. Um, and if you’re doing 30 minutes, it needs to happen pretty consistently and frequently. Um, internships is often the, the, the cha, the most challenging one.

Carlos Moreno: Because there’s also comes along with funding and resources depending on your community and how you get and transport young people to other places. And again, there’s the control question around, wait, are young people are out in the real world two days a week?

Cyndi Burnett: Wow.

Carlos Moreno: Yeah. Yeah. In some cases, two days a week.

Carlos Moreno: In some cases it’s one day a week. Um, but. You know, that has to happen with, with some level of frequency. Um, and then for the one student at a time piece, is that, how does your schedule allow for your advisor to have one-on-one check-ins with the students? Right? Like, where does that happen within the flow of the day?

Carlos Moreno: Right. Within the flow of the school day, how do you create a space where every young person within that advisor’s advisory and within that group can have a one-on-one check-in with their advisor? In some cases it happens weekly, and some cases it happens every other week. So I think those are some of the, to your point, some of the concessions.

Carlos Moreno: Just to get really granular on it, it’s kind of some of the. The, the way we’ve had to adjust and accommodate.

matthew worwood: Well, it’s also, it, it also speaks to the, the idea that it’s, it’s that one student at a time. It’s not that factory model. And one of the things that, the last themes that have been the last few seasons, I’d say, Cindy, we relationships, right? We’ve had a lot of conversations about the importance of relationships.

matthew worwood: Mentorships. And I think what I’m hearing ultimately is what Cindy and I have, have put as our last chapter. It’s about educating the whole person. Right? And it’s not about the content. We’re living in a world, we have so much access to content. But when you go out in the real world and you, you get to see how this, this information is being applied.

matthew worwood: I, this, this is not. Just about teaching the content. You know, that’s one of the things, it’s about educating that person and even, you know, making a commitment to stand up and speak and articulate your learning, you know, to Cindy, to your point, it might be a TED talk and that might be one shape it takes.

matthew worwood: It’s, it’s, it feels so much more, but in some ways it’s not that much if you think about it.

Carlos Moreno: Agreed.

Cyndi Burnett: And Matt, I just wanna build on that because you’re talking about relationships and we haven’t had a yet, we’re already 31. We haven’t had a chance yet to talk about Carlos’ book, which is called Finding Your Leadership Soul.

Cyndi Burnett: And I was able to dig into a lot of this book, um, before today. And I just wanna say, Carlos, it’s based on these three principles you talk about, which is leading with love, care, and vulnerability. And I felt that as I was reading the book, I felt. Love and care and vulnerability in, in your writing and telling of your story.

Cyndi Burnett: So, so thank you for that. So tell us more about where this leadership soul comes from and finding your leadership soul and what advice you would give out, give to educators and administrators out there who want to find their leadership soul. How do you build that?

Carlos Moreno: Yeah, that, thank you for spending time with, with the book.

Carlos Moreno: I still, I still. At times can’t believe that there’s, there’s this thing that’s been offered and put out there with my name on it and, and, and elevating the stories of three young men who I knew. Um. Really, really well. Knew them intimately, knew them. I grew, grew with them, learned from them. Um, who are the, were the, the three young men who are on the cover and the features of the book, and who are sadly no longer with us.

Carlos Moreno: So I just also wanna honor, always honor Jose, sway, Andy and Sean, um, and all their gifts. So. I’ll start off by saying that for me, love, care, and vulnerability aren’t soft ideas. They’re, they’re actually designed principles in so many ways. Um, love shows up when schools say, we see you, we know you, you, you matter here.

Carlos Moreno: Um, creative learning requires like psychological safety. Right. Students don’t take risk if they feel invisible or disposable. Uh, when a, when a young person knows at least one adult who genuinely has their back, as I had shared, right, they’re, they’re far more willing to try to make mistakes, to revise to and to imagine, imagine something new, um, and care.

Carlos Moreno: If we talk about the elements of love, care, and vulnerability, care shows up in how intentionally we design experiences like. Creativity isn’t chaos. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s thoughtful. It’s a, it’s a thoughtful structure with flexibility, um, and caring schools. What I, what I would say for the educators that, that want to think about, you know, these are the elements of leadership, soul.

Carlos Moreno: When you think about caring, folks that are in and work within on behalf of caring schools ask, is this work meaningful to the student? Right. Does it connect to, does it connect to the real world and, and are we honoring their culture, their language, and their identity? Um, and care, care for, for me, is the difference between a project that’s cute, right?

Carlos Moreno: And one that’s transformative for a young person. Um, and then vulnerability. In terms of the, the last element of, of leadership soul is, you know, that’s the hardest one, right? Um, adults modeling vulnerability changes, changes everything, right? When an educator can say, I don’t have all the answers. I or I don’t, or just as, just, I don’t know.

Carlos Moreno: I actually don’t know, or, let’s figure this out together. They give students permission to be learners and not performers. Right. That, that, that kind of, it helps them see us remove our armor that so many of us walk into classrooms with and be like, oh. You know, he, she, they are not gonna front and say like, yep, they, you know, they have all the answers.

Carlos Moreno: This is a one by, uh, one directional relationship. It’s one, we can figure this out together. And I would say creative schools are places where just adults are willing to, are willing to unlearn alongside with kids. There’s a lot of things that we, that we as adults that, that have learned through very conventional experiences, um, that we carry with us, and that takes courage.

Carlos Moreno: So when, when leaders model that it, it ripples. It ripples through the entire culture. So the first thing I would say in terms of leadership soul is honestly reminding, reminding ourselves what it is that called us to work with and for and on behalf of young people in schools, right?

matthew worwood: Mm-hmm.

Carlos Moreno: In almost, in most cases, it wasn’t this idea of this particular content.

Carlos Moreno: We might love our content, right? But it, I’d like, I wanna firmly believe that for most of us. That, that made the, that made the decision, um, to be educators. We love the idea of working with young people.

matthew worwood: Mm-hmm.

Carlos Moreno: Right. And ask ourselves, what does it mean? If we had to put our content aside and work with young people, will we still be as excited to do that?

Cyndi Burnett: So Carlos, we end every episode asking our guests to share about their most creative educational experience, what it was either formal or informal, and the impact that it had on you. And if you’d like to share about a teacher that, that, within that story, that would be great.

Carlos Moreno: So, I, I, I, I’m in finding your leadership soul.

Carlos Moreno: Um, I, I mentioned. The amazing Shel Williams that for me, I refer to her as my Bronx angel. So there was a moment in time in my journey where I was making, you know, as a, as a, as a teenage boy growing up in, in New York City, I was making some really unhealthy decisions based on, um, a pretty traumatic experience I had had.

Carlos Moreno: And Cheryl was a community organizer in the Bronx, and she was the one that actually, um. To do something different. So the, the reason why I, I always think of Cheryl is. She was the advisor that exists within our schools outside of the school setting. So she was a person that took a level of care and wanted to know, you know, what was going on with me.

Carlos Moreno: Had heard what had happened. Did I need a job, help me facilitate landing an amazing summer experience, which was like my first. Teaching experience at a daycare working all summer, working with three, four, and five year olds with two of my best buddies. Now, mind you, my, this is three, three black men over all, over six four, working in a playground in the Bronx at a, at a, at a daycare center with, with, with tiny kids.

Carlos Moreno: Um. Amazing experience, but it was Cheryl, right, who, who saw, who saw that in us a of course, the need to be able to, to, to, to make some money. You know, legally, but also an opportunity to say, Hey, what the world is showing you what you need to be doing, try to, you have this experience to have some joy. So it was the first time that I was able to see really be, besides my own, my own family, kind of the family structures that existed, it was an opportunity for me to see, hey, I’m noticing that most of the people that are picking up their kids are moms and drop off where the dads, this is where I’ve noticed that, you know.

Carlos Moreno: Why some of this, the kids gravitated to us the way they did, and, and we were the only men that worked that worked at the daycare. Um, it it, it gave me a peek into a lot of the inequities that, that exist in our, in our societies. A lot of the challenges that exist in our society. Um, and Cheryl, and not only did she place us there, right, well help us land the position, but also helped, helped us in processing.

Carlos Moreno: That kind of what we were experiencing. ’cause we had tons of questions and we were just, you know, 17-year-old boys trying to figure it out, um, and learning. So, um, Cheryl Williams, um, non-traditional teacher, but probably the, the, the best teacher educator I’ve ever had.

Cyndi Burnett: Thank you.

matthew worwood: So Carlos, thank you so much.

matthew worwood: Hopefully this isn’t the, uh, one and only interview we have around big picture schools. I think there’s a lot more of the story to unpack along the way, but I think this was a really great episode to get us started to think a little bit about that, particularly, um, those four levers that you were referencing.

matthew worwood: It may be Cindy and I will revisit that in our debrief episode. If you enjoyed this and you’re interested in alternative schooling, um, please share this with a friend or colleague. And also we do wanna do a quick. Shout out to our YouTube channel as we make an effort to continue to be good with our shorts and getting more content out there.

matthew worwood: We do have a YouTube channel and we encourage you to subscribe to that as well. My name’s Dr. Matthew Ward,

Cyndi Burnett: and my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Cyndi Burnett: This episode was produced by Cindy Burnett and Matthew War. Our podcast assistant is Ann Fernando. And our editor is Sheik Ahmed.