Edrick:
A team of strangers who got together in the beginning of the week, quickly learned about each other, became a family, and then we created and made something, and we could be proud of it.

Alec:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton and you just heard the voice of Edrick Macalaguim. Edrick is director of High Tech High Chula Vista. But before that, he was a classroom teacher for 17 years in elementary and middle school. When I was teaching high school humanities, nobody was doing work that inspired and pushed me more than Edrick. There’s a million teaching things I want to ask Edrick about, but today we focused on how he launched his class over the first two weeks of the year.
We talked about what happened when a kid first walked into his classroom on day one. We talked about how he designed the first two weeks with the arc of the full year in mind, and we talked about what he did when he was a month or two into the year and realized the classroom culture wasn’t where he wanted it to be. To start, I’ll let Edrick tell you a little more about himself.

Edrick:
My name is Edrick Macalaguim. I’m director at High Tech High Chula Vista. I’ve been teaching for over 21 years. All of my years have been here in Chula Vista.

Alec:
Yeah, where did you start?

Edrick:
I first started teaching a 5th and 6th grade combination class at Myrtle S. Finney Elementary School, about seven miles north of the border, for the Chula Vista Elementary District and I was there for 11 years. I was there until I learned about the GSE, went through the GSE program as a second cohort, fell in love with High Tech High, and then I made the switch over year 12 to work for High Tech High.

Alec:
And the GSE is the Graduate School of Education?

Edrick:
Yes, that’s correct.

Alec:
For our listeners who don’t know. So then you came to High Tech Middle Chula Vista.

Edrick:
Correct.

Alec:
And then how long were you there for before you went into administration?

Edrick:
I was in the classroom for six years. Taught five years in 7th grade, and then I moved down to 6th grade.

Alec:
And then you became a dean, right?

Edrick:
Yep. Then afterwards I became a dean for two years with Rod Buenviaje, the director at the middle school. And then after that I had the great opportunity to come here to the high school to direct the high school.

Alec:
How long have you been director here now?

Edrick:
I’m in my third year now as the director for the high school.

Alec:
So you started in elementary, now you’re in high school. College next?

Edrick:
No, no. High school is where it’s at. I’ve found a love for high school. This is where I’m going to be for the next 20 years until I retire.

Alec:
Now, I want to take you back to that teacher mindset.

Edrick:
Yeah.

Alec:
What are the things that kids have created that you really think back on and you’re like, man, that was awesome.

Edrick:
I think probably one of my favorite projects was the Meals and Muppets project. The idea just really came from… This focus on eating healthy or at least being conscious about what we’re eating. So I think the driving question that year was like, should I eat that? And I know it’s a yes or no question and is not really open ended, but at least it just gave us a starting point to have kids think about what they’re eating.
When I think about projects, it’s always an umbrella of different projects that we’re going to do all centered around that same area. So in that year, we watched all the documentaries about food during the time, read Omnivore’s Dilemma with students, started a farm on our campus and we’re producing lots of food on our campus, and also gave students an opportunity to create and make a movie.
I remember we had an open conversation with students that year about really wanting to change what middle school kids eat and then we attempted to do some stuff with it, like posters and little presentations, and then kids realized in an open, reflective conversation that, we’re not going to change anybody in middle school. Mr. Mac, they’re always bringing chips. They’re going to drink soda. So we’re not going to be able to do that.
And then as kids were talking and asking questions like, well, where can we start? And one of the kids said, well, my brother’s in kinder and was like, what if we did something to make something for our kinder buddies? I’m like, oh, and at that time we’re doing kinder buddies, where our 7th grade students would read to kinder buddies once a week. And they said, okay. So that project that year shifted to the audience from middle schoolers to kinder buddies.
And then through more co-creating with each other, kids came up with Sesame Street and then there was a need of wanting to make their own Muppets. And I said, great. And so my team partner at the time got onto that. And so together as a group, students made their own Muppets, which were fabulous in what they created could stand side by side with Muppets on Sesame Street and then wrote a full script for a 40 minute movie to teach kindergartners about healthy eating, healthy living. And so it was just like that entire year long endeavor was just fun.
But the one thing that we did in the beginning of the year was to shift the idea that they’re coming to school, blurred the lines of a humanities class and a math science class and called ourselves Seven West because we were the 7th grade class on the west side of the building, but we were Seven West video production.
And so out of that video production kids felt like they weren’t coming to school, but they were just coming to work and part of this production company. So we all had different roles and the whole idea of the year was like, we’re going to create this 40 minute movie. We’re going to produce all these things. We’re going to have a community dinner that we’re going to host. All of these things came together beautifully under this umbrella idea of how do we best think about what we’re eating and make conscious choices to do better about what we’re eating so that we can be more healthy. It’s probably my favorite year of teaching in my entire career.

Alec:
Put yourself in the head of a kid coming into Mr. Mac’s class first day of school. Well, let me ask, first of all, where does that begin? Does that begin when they walk into your classroom? Does that begin when they arrive at school? Do they get an email beforehand? How does their school year with you begin?

Edrick:
The school year with me would begin with that first initial email. Not too sure if families will check that email, but it’s just an introductory email, letting kids know who I am, but it’s really about opening up my life to kiddos. Because traditionally I think kids will expect an email, welcome to the school, make sure you have this, here are the supplies that you’ll need, we’re really excited for you to be here. For me, it’s about welcoming them into a family setting. That’s the thing that I’ve always wanted to focus on and when I think about building culture from the get go, from day one or even before day one is that kids start to shift their mindset of like, oh, I’m coming to class now instead of that, they’re coming to family.
And so they get this email from me about, hi, my name is Edrick Macalaguim. This is who I am. I tell them things about my life. I love to mountain bike. I love to golf when I’m able to. Here are some of my hobbies. Some of us will have shared hobbies and I’m really interested in learning about you as well. This is who I am. This is what I bring to our family. And really interested in learning about all of you and what you will be able to bring to our family and how we can use our similarities and differences to really build an amazing extraordinary year together. So they get that first before they show up for day one.

Alec:
Do you get replies to that email?

Edrick:
Not typically from students, because it’ll be an email to students parents. A lot of parents will reply and it’s like, oh thank you. It’s really great to get this email, really looking forward to it. Sometimes parents will respond back and co-write it with their students like, oh this is who we are. And tell us a little bit about their kiddo so that I have something to build off of before the first day. So not typically, but after the first weeks, when we start to do some activities together, then I’ll get more replies from parents and students.

Alec:
So now we’re getting to first day of school. They got their schedule, they know that this is the period they’re going to Mr. Mac’s class. Would you be outside? Were you a kind of stand outside the classroom and bringing them…

Edrick:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s important… For me this as, not even just outside, but already wandering the halls that students are trying to look for a place. And so first welcome… And not just the kiddos who are assigned on my roster, but just welcoming all of our kids like hey, welcome to the High Tech Middle family. Really glad that you’re here. This is the place you’re supposed to be. And then as class started or is about to get started, then I would be at the front. So either high fives, dabs, just saying hi to each of the students and then just like, hey, welcome, we really appreciate that you’re here. You complete our team. You’re here for a reason. You’re meant to be here. Just doing my best so that kids can feel like they’re being seen, heard and valued before we even start the class.

Alec:
And what did you do? What was your first day thing? What did you do?

Edrick:
It was more like a first couple weeks thing. So the first day it’s really about, for me, building on the foundation of creating, we are a family and that the first day, right off the bat, we’re going to do things where we’re going to get to know each other. We’re going to do things where we can build together and be part of a creative endeavor together. So at the end of the day, we can feel proud that, hey, not only did I share something personal that I was comfortable sharing with my group so they can get to know me in a new way and so we can start to build relationships, but also as a team, we did something together and we built something together so we could be proud of it moving forward.
And so that was always the focus is like, how do I first start the foundation to build relationship? And how do I build the foundation of like, we are a family, we are a team, we do things together? And that when we put all of our individual minds together with one focus that we can really produce some amazing work.

Alec:
So I’m hearing two things there. Well, I guess three things, getting to know each other, feeling like a family and making something together. So let’s start with getting to know you, what are your go to activities? What are your getting to know you things that you’re like, these are my icebreakers or whatever you call them.

Edrick:
I was always the kid growing up. And then even through college, I have a hard time writing notes. And so I would always think in pictures and drawings and sketch doodling. And so the first activity sometimes would be an open activity of representing yourself as the way you think about yourself in school and representing yourself about how you think about yourself at home. And that you can use words, pictures, doodles, but students will have a ton of things that are on their desk already. So they might have some magazines that they might be able to cut out of, some glue sticks. There might be a list of character traits that are out also. So kids can pull from that list so that they can write that on their paper. There might be lots of different art tools so that kids can use whatever medium that they want so that they can help represent how they see themselves as a student and how they see themselves outside of our school.

Alec:
So we’re talking with puffy balls…

Edrick:
Everything. If you think of me running through a hobby store and just pulling all the things I can off the shelf and then dumping it on the table, that’s what they come into. And maybe sometimes there’re organizing little bins and things like that, but it’s just really, here’s all these things that we have here. Here’s this whole table of things that you can use to represent yourself, use whatever speaks to you, as much as or as little as, whatever, but whatever it is and how you do it is the answer is always going to be okay. Because kids are like, oh, was it all right if I do this. Oh, of course, if that’s what you want to do, yes. And then putting what they created on the desk and then their group members kind like, oh, this is what I think when I look at what you’ve created and this is our guess about who you are.
So I’ll do those kind of activities with intention. So I make sure to spend the time to debrief afterwards, because I always want to make sure that students have a deep understanding of what our intentions are and what we put out to the world and what’s perceived from those intentions. It’ll help me later when it comes to managing a class, it’ll help me later when it comes to diving into group work, when we’re having communication breakdowns between team partners, communication breakdown between groupings. I can always go back and be like, hey, remember that activity that we did. Let’s pull that out again. Remember how we did this and how at one point you thought this about this, but then they actually gave you the truth about who they are and why they put that in there. This is important for us to really take a pause and listen and try to hear and find out what the intentions are about things that happen. And then also voice out how you perceive that.

Alec:
So there’s two layers to that activity. There’s the opportunity to share who you are and share who you are in and out of school. And that sense of, hey, I’m getting to share this, but there’s also a kind of lesson of, you don’t say, hey, here’s my thing and this is why I put all this. You actually have the other person look at it, cold, come with their own interpretation, and then you have a point about the difference between intent and how it’s received.

Edrick:
Yeah, absolutely.

Alec:
That’s cool. And so day one, they’re painting, they popsicle sticking, they’re drawing, they’re doing whatever, they’re making their thing. And then they share it with one person day one or is it day one just all making?

Edrick:
No, it depends on the timeframe. So they might spend a section of the day making and creating and just having fun. Then we’ll spend some time being able to share out. And then after we share out, then I would move in that day one, let’s say that takes 30, 40 minutes of making and sharing out the first time. The rest of the time that we might have together would be the initial part of us diving in and brainstorming or something that we might be able to creating together.
And so that creation as a team will happen over a course of several days, whether that’s a first week video that will send out to our parents, whether that’s a giant Rube Goldberg machine that will connect with each other and connect with all the other teams. And so they understand there’s a starting point and ending point on each others table as they create this thing that’s going to move, and it has to make sure it connects with the other table somehow. So we’ll eventually always spend time doing some… Getting to know you on the relationship part of what we’re trying to do, and then we’ll spend some time together as a team in the creating and making.

Alec:
So in your first week you make a thing together.

Edrick:
Always. Yeah, I think it’s important for us to ground ourselves and also bond together to say, hey, we did this. And so at the end of the week we can feel proud and be like, hey, look at a team of strangers who got together in the beginning of the week, quickly learned about each other, became a family, and then we created and made something and we could be proud of it. And then we can share it with our families and be like, hey, this is something that we made. I’m really proud of it. And it’s low stakes because it’s not part of a project. It’s not going to get graded, but it just starts to build the culture of, this is what we do, this is who we are, this is how we can help each other and move forward.

Alec:
So going in, you don’t know what you’re going to make, is that right?

Edrick:
Well, it depends. Sometimes we have an idea of the direction we want to go in. So let’s say we do simple machines or looking at simple machines or pulleys and levers and then we want to do a Rube Goldberg domino effect something. So the kids understand, hey, something has a… You’ll be able to start here and end here with some kind of trigger mechanism. That’s going to be set so that way you know that all the machines can trigger off from the beginning of the machine all the way to the end as we put them all together. But then that’s the only constraint. Other than that, you have the freedom of whatever’s going to happen in the beginning.
We take out, again, our big bins of all sorts of things that kids can play with and make and create. I always, in the beginning of the year of all my classes, try to make sure to provide an opportunity for kids to be free and design and make something that is not under the constraints of we’re all going to do the same exact thing together and just kind of really exercise that part of our brain.

Alec:
And so you did the Rube Goldberg, was that leaning into a project that you knew was coming up that was going to be about simple machines or was that just like…

Edrick:
Yeah so depending on what the big project is going to be for the year or the endeavor for that semester, the first two, three weeks are always focused on team building activities, activities that we’ll do in small group, individual and on the whole group that will all feed into whatever the project’s going to be for the year or for that semester. So it’s intentional so that we can always build on it, come back to those activities. But it’s just something to get the momentum started, to get that first whiff of the smell of their favorite food. That’s what I always think about. It’s like, all right, if I’m going to give you your favorite food, the first experience you’re going to have is that sense of smell. I mean, smell like, oh man, mom and dad’s making this. And so I try to do that in a way of giving them an experience so they can get that first sense of, oh man, we’re really going to… What are we going to do?
We’re going to dive, we’re going to do this, but on a larger scale and get them excited about that, getting them waning. I can’t wait till tomorrow. My goal has always been if I can create an experience so that at the end of the period, the kids don’t want to leave. And they’re like, oh, I have to go to math class. Then that’s like, I’ve done it. I’ve done my job getting them excited about being in my class and not wanting to leave, wanting it to carry on even longer past the period. So I always try to move intention to build those experiences for kids so that every day they look forward to coming to class.

Alec:
So you did that first week, Rube Goldberg machine for class, did it work?

Edrick:
Sometimes yeah, sometimes no. A couple times that I’ve done it with two different cohorts of kids, they work individually, but trying to connect them all together, sometimes they don’t. And then we sit on that. It’s like, all right, it didn’t work, let’s think about why it didn’t work and then do a full debrief about that and what happened? What’s going on? What can we do to make it work? And kids talk about it. We’ll give them a shot to try to get to work on their own, to try to figure it out, to workshop ideas, present those ideas, vote on something that we can try to do to reiterate and then try it out. So we also use all that fun process of just making those silly machines to just teach things that we do in class and things that we’ll do, behaviors of things that we’ll do for the rest of the year of just critiquing our work, brainstorming new ideas, going to new iterations of our work. But we do it in a low stakes environment that’s just a lot of fun for kids.

Alec:
So what are some of the other examples of first week, first couple week, smells of the good food that you’ve done?

Edrick:
Yeah, when I think about setting up classroom culture or thinking about helping to manage a classroom, I often think in terms of team building activities and then just fun activities. So depending on whatever it is that we’re doing, if I get a sense of in my class that communication’s slightly off, kids are not really paying attention to each other’s needs, they’re not in a place of wanting to help each other out, then I will do different activities when they come in the next day. I love cooking shows and some of my favorite cooking shows involve a mystery box. And so one day I was at a local hobby store and found all these wooden crates that were pretty inexpensive so I bought it, like eight of them. And so when kids would come in on a certain day and I knew it was something that I needed to shift and change within the group dynamics, they would come in to an empty desk with just a box sitting on their desk upside down.
And they’re like, what is this? And I put directions on the board like, do not touch the box. For the first time it’s like, this is your mystery box challenge. So kids have no idea what’s inside the box, but they’re waiting with anticipation. What is it? What do we have to do? I give them no instruction. And I say, for the next 45 minutes, you’re going to be highly involved and engaged with your team with this challenge. And then I’ll put a timer up and say, ready, set, go. So they open the box and in that box, depending on the needs of how I’m needing to help manage or help shift my classroom, it’ll depend what’s in there. So a simple activity that I’ve used in the past is broken squares or broken circles. So kids are given broken pieces of square that when they build all the squares, the squares will be all the same size, but they’re given random pieces of different squares.
But the whole idea of that activity is that you have to build your own square, but you might get all the pieces you need. You might not, but you can’t take a piece from somebody. Pieces are only allowed to be given, but you can’t talk. And so the activity forces students to one, not just try to accomplish something that they’re trying to do, but also pay attention to the needs of their friends. And so if they look over and say, oh, I have this piece and I look over and I can see that they need it. They can only hand it to them. The other friend has to figure out where that piece goes. But already at that point, I am helping them to build that behavior that I’m hoping from them to be empathetic, to help their teammates with something that they may need. And so they have that act of giving that piece to that person so that eventually everybody gets to finish their square and then we’ll spend 20, 30 minutes debriefing what the activity was about. What did they learn in that activity?
And then I’ll quickly shift that over to, all right, in our class, lately we’ve been having lots of issues with just communication breakdown with what’s happening. As we dive into our project work and dive into our group work, how will this activity affect us and impact us? Let’s write some goals down together and let’s check up on these goals in a week. So I often will use team building activities as a means to help manage a class. And also after the first three weeks or four weeks of school, if I say, oh man, things are going little wiring and crazy and kids just need a new direction. Instead of me talking about that new direction, I give them an experience, a shared experience and something fun like the mystery box challenge so that it’s not really part of the project, but they could be involved in it. It’s like a break from the project, but then we spend quality debrief time. So talk about the impact of what that activity was and how that’s going to help us to move us forward for the next level.

Alec:
And do you have a debrief protocol that you use or is that just sort a more instinctive you feel for?

Edrick:
It’s partly instinctive, but it’s just basic reflection questions about asking kids, what did you learn about yourself in that activity? What did you learn about each other in that activity? What do you think the purpose was? What is a group benefit coming out of this? Just those kind of basic questions. And then I’ll let them start the open conversation right there. And of course when we’re in those conversations, we already moved all the tables and chairs, we’re sitting in circle format, so that we’re all looking at each other and talking about each other and also taking notes so that we can document our journey through that particular activity. And then from there, write a goal down as a group like, all right, here’s our goal for the week. So that’s on a poster paper somewhere in the room and then we’ll revisit that goal. And be like, hey, we really wanted to work on those goal. How well do we do?
I think it’s also important with kids that we celebrate small successes often, and not just at the end of the semester where we’re doing our exhibition for our projects. But we created a small goal, we accomplished this goal, lets celebrate, create a new goal and let’s move forward from there. All those small little celebrations help out with kids with just the motivation of continuing to move forward in a project and just the things that we’re trying to do in the class.

Alec:
But you do those debriefs full class? Those are full class?

Edrick:
Yeah, we always do it full class. Sometimes I’ll do a full class and then as we move back into the project work, if there’s two or three groups that I know that really needed to have that conversation, then I’ll just sit down with that group. And it’s like, hey, we’ve had conversation this week about communication breakdown, we’ve had [inaudible 00:22:41], we have had individual conversations with each of you about something that you are having trouble with this group. It’s like, what is a goal that we can create for just this group moving forward? And oftentimes going through an activity that’s not linked to the project, helps them to better understand how they can make small shifts and changes so that they can help each other out moving forward.

Alec:
And those broken squares is that something you just buy?

Edrick:
It’s an activity that I’ve been through and this is a free activity you could find online.

Alec:
What are some other ones?

Edrick:
Some other activities that we’ve used, oftentimes I would do design challenges or build challenges. Those are always a lot of fun, but the tower challenge using either blocks, dominoes, the spaghetti challenge, doing all those. So all of those kind of team building activities, those are the things that I would bring into the mystery box challenge, but it also really depends on what we are experiencing in the class. What are my needs into shaping what I’m hoping for? Addressing difficulties or challenges. Then when I would see that I would talk with my team partners and try to devise an activity for us to use so that we can move it forward and then put that into a fun activity for kids in the mystery box. I think you can do intentional team building that leads into the work that you want to dive into with kids and also use the team building as a way to launch.
So some folks will launch a project and take kids on a field trip. I often think about my launch as a two to three week launch. And that’s where we build in all the team building activities. But every team building activity that we design for those two to three weeks serve a purpose for the project that we’re going to dive into, whether it’s the content of the team building activity or the actual behaviors that they are going to engage in. All of that serves into the greater purpose when we dive into a two to three month project. And at the same time, I think kids can still dive into content through team building at the same time.
We often, we’ll think about how do you front load information for students? Well, I think front loading information can happen not just like, okay, we’re going to do a jigsaw. That’s not something I’ve ever been interested in, but I can take the same idea of front loading, turning that into a fun activity through the mystery box challenge. So now kids are having to do something, create something and learn information, and transform that information, and get into some kind of group behavior dynamics of learning something about each other as they work through the debriefs.
And at the end of the day, they got into an amazing dope activity. They learned something to help front load information. For me, that’s going to lead into the project and they built a stronger connection together as a group. I think you can do that all intentionally. That takes time and effort to build those, but it pays off in huge dividends when you’re in the thick of the work in the project, because we can always lean on that foundation. It just helps to build a much stronger foundation for the larger project work as you move forward.

Alec:
Can you give me an example of a content rich mystery box?

Edrick:
I think a content rich mystery box would be like, so we did this project called Drop the Beat. It was an exploration of hip hop, a year long exploration of hip hop and beats and the use of hip hop as a means to dive into social justice. And so the mystery box for us that year dealt with listening to lyrics, listening to songs and then diving into pulling out favorite lyrics and songs. So we were bringing Tupac and Biggie in, of course, doing all the work and letting parents know that we’re going to dive into this work, because sometimes they might hear bad word or we’ll use radio versions, things like that. So the fun activity of that mystery box was that they’re going to dive into listening to music, breaking up some lyrics and then diving into writing questions about why were these lyrics created and just using that as a means to generate this list of fierce wonderings.

Alec:
What was in the box? It wasn’t like a discman, or a…

Edrick:
So we were able to score some old cassette players and some headphones just because I’m a 80s kid and so I found some tapes, I have an old karaoke machine at home, so we dubbed a bunch of the songs. And so they just had, here’s a cassette tape and what is this? And some kids had no idea how to use it. They would put this in this old Walkman and that Walkman was connected to… And I used newer technology that had a splitter for headphones. And they was like, what is this? And so they use the splitter, put the headphones on, listen to a song. It’s like, what’s going on? And they had, okay, after hearing the song, choose some things that you’ve heard that you want to question or journal about those kind of things, but it just helped to kick us into larger work.
And then once we had a list of questions, then sometimes… The next, whether it’s the mystery box or a different challenge, or if we were doing a gallery walk, it would be a gallery walk of news clippings and articles of around when those songs were created, what’s happening in the neighborhoods, what’s happening around different cities, talking about gun violence, talking about police brutality or anything that was just going on at the time. So kids could start to make connections and look at some primary sources and so they can get a sense of all right, this music was created during this particular time period. Here’s some news clippings that they can read from primary sources to be able to read about it and so they could start to gain an understanding of what was happening in the world at that time. And so it was all content based through experiences, through songs, through news articles, those kind of things.

Alec:
And that was also significantly a project about urban planning, right?

Edrick:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we were able to dive… Use that as a way to find these little intersections or these meandering parts of a river to dive into much deeper levels of work.

Alec:
Yeah and just to say for the listeners, it was looking at the way that neighborhoods, predominantly African American neighborhoods throughout the country got split up by highways and how that kind of lack of regard for those communities ended up connecting to the development of hip hop and the preoccupations of hip hop. All right. I don’t know if there’s a good answer to this other than be a teacher for 20 years, but one thing that strikes me if I were listening to this as a new teacher, when you say, I take my two weeks of initial team building activities and I make sure that those all are building towards the project, I would be like, okay cool, but….
How do you do that? I mean, if you were talking to a new teacher on staff here and you were helping them figure that out, short of teaching for 20 years, how can they develop that muscle of seeing, oh, today we should do the spaghetti challenge, but we should tweak the spaghetti challenge so nobody talks and then in the debrief we should bring out… There’s all that stuff.

Edrick:
I mean, you’re right. I think after being in the classroom so many years, there’s things that I do instinctively that help me to tweak, adjust different types of team building activities. So I think if I’m sitting down with the new teachers that I get to work with here on our campus, I would think about in terms of backwards planning. And so if I think about what’s a project that you’re thinking of that they want to dive into and not just think about how do you break down the content, but I ask them think about what are the student behaviors that you’re hoping for and then you’re hoping to see? I think oftentimes, especially when you’re working with older students, there is an assumption that we say work in groups that kids understand how to work in groups. So my hope is, and what I model to my staff is that I try to turn the implicit explicit and I do that by creating activities that I’m going to do with them together and then explaining what those activities were and why we did them and move with that type of attention.
So with thinking about the kind of project where somebody wants to dive into, while they’re designing that project, I think something that would help out also is to list out what are the behaviors that they’re hoping for to see from students, maybe that’s writing behaviors like, oh, I want to see students to be able to collaborate well together. I want students to really build on their listening skills. I want students to be able to analyze a piece of reading, a close piece of reading and to be able to produce a reflection off of that. So okay, great, so what does that look like? And then how do we design something to give them that opportunity so that they can practice that in a low stakes activity so that they can build off of that moving forward when they actually get that piece of writing that you want them to break down.
And so I think if you start there, then you can start to think about different types of activities that they might be able to find online, to be able to use and then make the tweaks that they need purposefully to those activities so that students are getting the chance to practice those. And I think that’s the key thing is that you’re giving students ability to practice into the behaviors that we’re hoping to see them exhibit while they’re in that project work.

Alec:
When do you see team building going wrong?

Edrick:
When I see team building going wrong is when it’s something… When it’s an activity that’s designed in a way that does not allow for multiple entry points for students to be successful in that activity. So if there’s just one particular thing that students need to do, and you have a couple students who are either one, not interested in that, not motivated or two, not able to do that, then you start to lose kids in that ability of getting their hearts and minds and their motivations and excitement to be part of that.

Alec:
So that’s why you’ve got the magazines out, you’ve got the popsicle sticks out, you’ve got the drawing pens out, you’ve got all the different ways of…

Edrick:
If I can… Would you think about… The same way we think about different modalities of learning. I try to think about what are all the different modalities of engaging into something. So when I look at an activity, if I see that activity’s pretty limiting, let’s say the activity is just a speaking activity. Well, if I have some kids who don’t want to say anything or are shy to say anything, or I have a student emergent bilingual student who’s new and has limited vocabulary, well that activity we might see less engagement in, or it also might negatively affect them where they’re not going to want to participate in class anymore. So providing a menu of choices helps and also just thinking about there are other things that we can do that will allow students to engage in that activity where they can feel most successful.

Alec:
Why doesn’t broken squares have that problem?

Edrick:
I think broken squares doesn’t have that problem because it’s an activity of one, it’s an activity that happens all in silence. Two, students have the ability to… They’re creating, putting a puzzle together and all students can be able to put a puzzle together. And three, when I do broken squares, I don’t put something into the activity where we celebrate when somebody’s done because then the other part of it, because kids will get competitive, they’re going to want to finish like, oh, we’re done. It’s like, oh yeah, but I’m not celebrating that. I don’t put anything in the procedure of what you’re doing to celebrate that. The one thing I do say is we’re done when we’re all done. And so in that activity, when a group is done, they can stand up and walk around and cheer on. That’s the goal, is to cheer on, silently cheer on each person. And we talk about what does that look like? What does the body language look like when you’re silently cheering somebody on?
And so at the end of the day, once we’re all done, that everybody has their square completed. And the only thing that we’re really celebrating is that together as a team that we’re able to accomplish this goal together. This doesn’t become competitive. So I think broken squares worked really well for me. At least it worked well for me in the classroom because it broke the lines of communication, you don’t have to worry about communicating. It was silent. It was really focused on being able to pay attention to your partners and then thinking about how I can help my partners with their work.

Alec:
That’s really helpful. I think, I don’t know if there might not… I don’t know how to answer this question, you might not either, but I’m just thinking you gave the example of single entry points, that something just like speaking is going to be a problem for some kids. And I can imagine a teacher being like, yeah but just putting together a puzzle is going to be a problem for some kids. If you’re just like, this is the thing, we’re all doing this thing, then you could say, well, doing the spaghetti challenge is, we’re all doing this thing, doing the broken squares, we’re all doing this thing. Building the Rube Goldberg, even though you’ve got lots of different stuff, is we’re all doing this thing. I don’t know, they feel different to me, but what is it about… I feel like there’s times that a single entry point is really damaging and there’s times when a single entry point is actually you need it and it’s fine. And I don’t know what that… I don’t know how you tell, but I know it.

Edrick:
Yeah and I don’t know what the right answer is for that either is I think it just really, as teachers, I think it’s very important for us to move with intention. So we don’t just give kids an opportunity to do a team building activity just because we found on the internet and it was quick and easy and I can make quick copies and then we just go about doing it. I think it’s really important for us to move with intention of why we’re doing this activity and how is this activity going to be beneficial for kids in the long run. And so maybe it is a single entry point. And so maybe that’s the justification to do that. But I think also as teachers, we know our kids and in that hope of knowing your kids you’ll know if that single entry point’s going to work for almost all of your kids. And if it’s not going to work for all of your kids, then you make the necessary modification or changes or front loading for kids that might have a harder time with it.
Let’s say if I’m going to do a single entry point activity that does involve speaking. And so the day before, a couple days before I would talk to the one or two students and let them know, hey, this is what we’re going to be working on. Here’s the prompt. Let’s write something up together. And so that before they even come into the activity, they already have experienced what is going to happen, what they’re going to do and feel successful in being able to contribute already during that time. I think those are modifications that you can make. Then at the end of the day, when the activity’s done, everybody in the group will be really successful. And then nobody in that kiddo’s group will need to know that they found out about it two days ago. And so I think those little tweak and just personalizing things for kids will help them engage in that work.

Alec:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Okay so let’s say it’s two months into the year or it’s a month into the year and you’re just realizing the classroom culture is not what I want to be, but it feels weird to be like, okay guys, we’re all going to start fresh. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen that happen.

Edrick:
Yeah, it’s happened to me. So in the past, let’s say I’m a month in, you feel the pressure of I’m in a project or if I’m in a traditional class, feel the pressure of the scope and sequence and I need to move forward. So you feel like this pressure of, I can’t go back and start from the beginning. So I felt that a lot in many of my years in the classroom, but when I hit around year 15, I started to do a reset day. And so let’s say I found myself a month and a half in, the culture in the class isn’t where I wanted to be. I would hold a two day reset and I would be intentional and transparent with kids about it. And part of that, I would maybe, depending on the level that you have, if it’s elementary, it might look a lot different than what I would do at a high school level.
But I would maybe start with a Google form with kids, just like an open survey about what’s happening in the class. Maybe ask critical questions about how are you feeling about how the class is going? Engagement. How would you rate the engagement of students in this project? Are there things that you are excited about that’s happening in our class? What are some improvements that we can use in our class? And so I would use that survey as a means to get into some talking points with students. And oftentimes students will call it out right away. If the classroom cultures off, there’re kids being disruptive or just the flow, it doesn’t really feel good. I think kids will call that out when you give them the opportunity to do so. And so I’ll start there in this idea of a two day reset and then open it out, talk about it with students and then brainstorm with them about, okay, what are some ways that we can create some goals and get better as a group?
And as I’m doing this in this entire idea of reset and calling things out and being intentional about it and being transparent, at the same time I’m designing new activities so that we can do that to get us into the place of where they want to be. So whatever the goals are, then that might turn into a mystery box challenge, whatever the goals are that might turn into connecting students with an expert in the field that’s around the project that we’re working on, who can talk to us about these things, but whatever it is, I’m trying to build in new experiences with students to reset that culture and to go back. Oftentimes if there’s a lack of joy in the class and kids start to call that out, then I just try to maybe spend a day or a couple days to…. Going back and trying to find what that joy is.
Sometimes that means I go back to letters they have written me or some identity stuff, that work that we’ve done in the beginning. So I can go back into that stash, read through it, think about what kids are most passionate about and then redesign a reset day to really hone in on what kids are passionate about and then kind of capture their hearts again. I’m all in and okay with doing a reset. I think oftentimes, at least if others out there felt the same way that I felt like the pressure of the work moved me not to do that. But I think just even spending a couple days on pausing, even pausing academic work, to reset the culture just paid off in the end and allowed us to find a place of just joy and fun. And I think the whole thing for me always is, if kids are not smiling or laughing at some point in that class, then I need to tweak and make some changes to it.
And oftentimes that’s where I felt like the reset was most needed. Because kids were just maybe burnt out as a project, stressed out about deadlines and things like that. I’m like, I need to find a way for us to capture their hearts, find something that’s joyful in the work again, give them opportunities to engage in that, to have fun, to smile, to create shared memories. I always think about at the end of the year, what are kids going to remember most? And they might not remember me covering parallel structure and writing, but they’re going to remember some shared experience where they were laughing together or they were smiling together. So if I can do that in a reset day to help get us back into a place where I can build on that classroom culture, then I’ll do that. And so once I started doing that, I found myself doing that in all parts of the year.
Another powerful thing that I found, and I wish I started this in the beginning of my career than doing this in the last four years is just being open with kids about, hey, that didn’t go well. Or if I see, let’s say we’re doing a test or a quiz and most of the kids don’t do so well. And instead of leaving it on them, it’s like, oh, I didn’t do so well. I’m like, no, not you, I’m going to own this, whatever I was trying to accomplish, that didn’t go so well. So I’m going to talk to my mentors. I’m going to talk to my coach. I’m going to try to figure this out for you because I owe it to you and we’re going to redo this. And sometimes I would do a redo lesson, so instead of a reset day for culture, I would do a redo lesson.
We’re going to do this lesson in a different way. And then I’m going to ask you to evaluate how this lesson went and talk about what parts of these lesson you were jiving with and spoke to you and which parts I can improve on. And so even asking students to evaluate my craft as an educator helped me just to become stronger in the craft and then being open with them about when I feel like I’m not doing so well and that I need help. I just found that involving my kiddos in that process for my own growth, just solidified that idea and understanding that we’re a family and that we’re here together and they know that I’m trying my best and that I’m also going to involve their voices to help me become the best person that they need me to be.

Alec:
Awesome, man.

Edrick:
Right on.

Alec:
All right. Final question. Is there anything that you’ve seen you want to shout out in terms of going around classrooms either this year or in past years as an administrator that you’ve been like, oh, that is so cool?

Edrick:
Yeah so I’ll shout out Ted and Will’s, 9th grade co-op group.

Alec:
Quick interjection, that’s physics teacher, Ted Cuevas and humanities teacher Will Ferrel. Now back to Edrick.

Edrick:
They take a day and they did this yesterday, doing team building activities for their entire time that they have kids. But the activities are led by former students that were in their co-op group in the past. And usually they use 11th grade students. So the 11th grade students are leading these team building activities and those team building activities are all the kind of activities that I talked about earlier, would give kids an opportunity to be able to engage with each other low stakes matter, but also have fun. So they’re all outdoors.
One of my favorite activities that I walked into yesterday, walked into a north field and I see a student blindfolded, they’re in the middle of this box, maybe about eight feet by eight feet using with blue tape on the ground and there’s different objects. And then there’s a bucket to the side. So it’s clear to me that that student was getting directions on how to find these items and how to put it in the bucket. But the student giving the direction had her back to that student. So she could not see what was happening in the box. And then her teammates, the small group of other six kids were on the outside, on an arc, watching what was happening in the box. They had to give the person giving directions. They had to give her directions without talking. So we have this small group of six kids giving hand gesture directions to the one person who can give a verbal direction to the student who is in the middle of the box with the blindfolded, trying to pick up all the pieces. And they did it successfully.
And I was like, oh, this is so amazing. Because the kids were just having fun. You can see the looks on the kids’ faces who can’t talk, wanting to say something, but all move in different directions, stand up and go to the left. You see the student who’s giving the verbal direction a little bit anxious, but shouting out all these different things, all the same time and the person in the middle looking like a broken robot, going back and forth, trying to listen to the directions. But at the end of it, they were able to do the activity. But I think through the debrief of that, it just taught so much to the kiddos about how directions are given, perceived, received, and then how you could do that in all the different forms and still accomplish something together as a team. It was amazing. So I saw that and I told Will and Ted, I was like, dude, I want to copy this and we should get the staff to do this as well.
And so I think their goal is… They usually do this one big day in the beginning of the year. But we talked about how do you just replicate that throughout the year? Or just use these kind of activities to help redirect your teams or the co-op group moving forward. So big ups to them, super amazing day. The kids always look forward to it as well. Not just the 9th grade kiddos who are currently in their room, but the 11th grade kiddos who can come back and give back. They always have a lot of fun leading all our younger freshmen through those activities.

Alec:
Oh, that’s awesome. Edrick, thank you so much, man.

Edrick:
Yeah, it’s been fun.

Alec:
It’s been a pleasure.

Edrick:
I appreciate it.

Alec:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Hershel. Huge thanks to Edrick for taking the time to talk to us. You can find links to the Meals and Muppets movie and that broken circles activity in our show notes. There’s also a link to the video that Edrick made with the High Tech High Chula Vista staff at the start of the school year. I promise you, you’ll be glad you watched this movie. Thanks for listening.