The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the critical inquiry into the phenomenon of student invisibility within educational systems, a matter of grave concern that often arises not from negligence but from systemic incoherence. We delve into the ramifications of adult decisions that, when compounded over time, can lead to a student's unintentional absence from the educational framework. Our discussion highlights the necessity for a coherent approach, wherein attendance, counseling, instruction, and communication work in concert rather than in isolation, thereby ensuring that no student falls through the cracks. We aim to explore the design of educational institutions that prioritize visibility and accountability, reflecting on the imperative that every student must be recognized and valued within their learning environment. This episode challenges us to consider how we can cultivate systems that guarantee the presence and worth of each individual student, emphasizing that their experiences matter profoundly.

Additional Notes

The discourse undertaken within the latest installment of The Wheelhouse delves deeply into the intricacies surrounding student invisibility within educational systems. A salient point raised pertains to the notion of coherence, which is posited as a critical factor in ensuring that students do not fall through the cracks of institutional oversight. The episode opens with a stark vignette illustrating the plight of a student whose seven-day absence went unnoticed by faculty, prompting an examination of the systemic failures that contribute to such occurrences. The speakers advocate for a paradigm shift in how educational institutions perceive and address these issues, emphasizing that invisibility is seldom a result of apathy but rather a consequence of fragmented systems that fail to communicate effectively. The discussion evolves to consider how coherence can serve as a protective measure, safeguarding against the alienation of any student. It is underscored that the design of educational systems must be intentional, proactive, and rooted in a commitment to recognizing the inherent worth of every student. The episode ultimately calls for a collective responsibility among educators to ensure that no student remains invisible, thereby fostering an inclusive and responsive educational environment.

Takeaways:

1. The episode delves into the profound implications of educational invisibility, examining how structural incoherence contributes to students becoming marginalized within the system.
2. We discussed the necessity of coherent human systems in educational environments to ensure that no student can quietly disappear due to lack of support or attention.
3. The conversation emphasizes the importance of accountability among educators, where each individual must recognize their role in ensuring every student feels valued and seen.
4. The speakers highlight the need for intentionality and proactivity in educational practices, advocating for systems that prioritize student presence and participation at all levels.
5. A notable statistic reveals that only 43% of students feel they would be missed if absent, underscoring the urgent need for schools to foster a sense of belonging.
6. The episode concludes with a call to action for educators to reflect on their practices, ensuring they cultivate environments where all students are acknowledged and supported.

Follow Students Matter, LLC on Instagram or LinkedIn — or find any of us there: Kathy Mohney, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, and Dr. Grant Chandler.

Students Matter

LearnHarbor

Until Next Time Remember: See every student. Keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.

Last episode, we talked about drift, about how small adult decisions compound.

But today, we ask a harder question.

What happens when those decisions accumulate long enough that a student disappears from the system?

Not intentionally, not maliciously, but structurally.

Because invisibility rarely comes from indifference.

It comes from incoherence.

A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.

Good morning.

I'm Dr. Grant Chandler, and this has been a rough morning.

And so I want to say welcome to the Wheelhouse.

This is the first time that the Wheelhouse team has been together in person for season 12.

We've had a series of interesting technical mishaps this morning.

So I am beyond excited that we are all in the same space and that we are ready to begin episode three.

So I want to first say welcome, welcome.

Welcome to Wheelhouse Team.

Kathy mone.

Michael Pipa.

Dr. Alicia Monroe.

Good morning.

Good morning, Good morning.

It's so great to have all of us back in the same space.

Yay.

The team is back.

So thank you.

Thank you for welcoming me back into space.

February is Black History Month, so that is where the work that I am so diligent and committed to is elevated and amplified.

So thank you for understanding and thank you for your support through the host of events and activities that I've been involved in.

Just so grateful that you're doing that work and so wonderful to see you out there.

Beautiful and radiant.

Absolutely nothing more important than that work in the month of February.

And I'm going to say every single

day, every day in February.

Right?

It's the work that.

That's that commitment.

That's that real work.

You know, Good trouble.

Good trouble.

I love that.

Yes, absolutely.

So I want to say before we get started today, thank you to all of our listeners.

We're just seeing a massive uptick in downloads even while we were on hiatus.

And of course, we dropped two episodes last week.

The season premiere was on Tuesday and episode two was on Thursday.

And y' all are.

Y' all are telling us that the conversations that we are having are important to you.

And even more importantly, they're important to our students and to what our students experience.

So we are beyond thankful that you are listening to us.

Please continue to share our conversations with every single educator or parent or anyone that you think needs to hear the great conversations that we're having.

So welcome back again to season 12.

You know, our theme this season is a continuation of season 11.

It is future ready innovation rooted in humanity, with an interesting tagline added to that built by coherent human systems.

And in the first episode, we defined what that means.

And then in last episode, we talked about the importance of daily choices, about what happens to alignment under pressure, and about how coherence lives in patterns, not philosophy.

Today I want to ask a harder question.

What happens when coherence is absent?

What happens when systems are fragmented, when assumptions go untested, and when ownership is unclear?

Recently, in a district I am familiar with, a student was absent for seven days.

Adults didn't know why he was in the hospital.

His life mattered.

And that reality forces a systems question, not a sentimental one.

Because invisibility is rarely caused by indifference.

It's caused by incoherence.

When attendance, counseling, instruction, leadership and communication operate in parallel, instead of alignment, students can fall between structures.

This episode is not about that tragedy.

It's about design.

If future ready schools are built through coherent human systems, then those systems must be structured so that students cannot quietly disappear.

Today we're asking, what does it mean to build schools where no student becomes invisible?

Those schools are where all students and all educators matter.

Absolutely.

So Grant, when you shared that story with me offline, and I thought about the philosophical construct of mattering, that means you see me, you hear me, you value me when I'm there, and you miss me when I'm gone.

We talked.

I quoted Russell Qualey in his student voice survey last week.

I think it's just a really interesting statistic.

You know, he asked students nationally all sorts of questions.

He's interviewed, surveyed thousands and thousands of students and less than half, 43% report that they believe they would be missed if they were absent from school.

Just 43%.

So I would guarantee that there were some students at that school, if they were missing for seven days, they would have been missed.

Absolutely.

Interesting to say some students and knowing that each student isn't necessarily seen.

And so thinking about that, when you know, when students become invisible and really focusing in on that, those human systems and knowing that all across education, so whether that's in the United States, it's abroad, that there are so many, so many amazing educators in, in classrooms, in schools, in janitorial roles, you know, in the, the kitchens, whatever that is, there are so many humans.

But when those, those systems aren't coherent in knowing that.

Okay, how do we make sure that no student is invisible, that they become invisible?

And that isn't relying on a single human.

No, I'm right there with you, Kathy.

It maps back to.

And Grant knows that I focus specifically on the philosophical and social constructs of whole childhood educator.

And those five questions.

Right.

That I Designed that seem so simple.

It's how we ask ourselves and reflect on our practice.

Who am I?

Who are we?

Who do we serve?

How do we serve them?

And how do you know we are serving them?

Well, five simple questions.

But if you deepen that understanding, think about what you just said, Kathy, which was so eloquent and poignant.

Are we really being inclusive?

If we were really being inclusive, then how are students invisible?

And a lot of times, right, and you know, we're kind of been, we're focusing this, this season on, on this coherence piece, right?

Because, you know, in larger, larger systems, in larger buildings, this requires that there are structures in place that prevent.

Right?

So that prevent children from being invisible and that guarantee that information that needs to be shared between adults to support students actually gets shared.

So when we think about it, right, we think about, there's a lot of individual conversations and a lot of individual soul searching and looking in the mirror that educators need to do all the time to make sure that we know who we serve and we know that we're serving them well.

We also have to look at the structural pieces that make it even more complicated for caring adults to do that work.

Are our systems, are they designed for that level of right?

To minimize, mitigate, eliminate invisibility?

You know, we talked about this coherent human systems, right?

Do our students experience what we value?

If we value, if we say we value in our hearts that we value each and every student?

Do our systems, right?

Do our structures, do they support that?

Can I, can I push on that a little bit too?

Because even when I was going to push too.

Good, Michael, good.

Even when our systems are built and designed to be responsive, those systems are enacted by people.

Absolutely.

You know, Lisa, when you are talking about the importance, the philosophical root of mattering, I think that it is inherent in the oldest human teachings.

Not a sparrow shall fall, right?

But.

But we ought to know of it, right?

This is the call to service.

And unless we are asking ourselves as practitioners, as servants of the mission to provide powerful student care, that we are seeing those in our care, we are truly hearing and seeing and responding to them.

Unless we're holding ourselves accountable, the best designed system won't work.

It just won't work.

We need both.

We need a highly detailed and responsive system enacted by highly detailed, oriented and responsive human beings.

We need both.

Absolutely.

It's not, I mean, Michael, I couldn't have said it any better.

You know, I think it was just beautiful.

With understanding that we can design these systems, we can ensure that there's you know, if you think about a student being absent for 70s, so they is there a lack of a system that's going to trigger, you know, oh, a warning, an S.O.S.

right.

So you can have that to say okay at three days where the system triggers someone to respond, but if the someone isn't responding or if this people, not just a single person aren't responding to that, then that system can't be enacted.

So you can design and put these things into place to know that somebody that within that system is actually checking in on that student.

You can also have it on the other end to where the systems are in place and the adults are acting, you know, so you have a student database to where we're logging those, those conversations, that communication, then we know.

But if you have all of these adults that are communicating but they're not utilizing the system to log that communication, then it appears that nobody is.

And then we're over communicating.

So either way, if the adults aren't living into the systems that are designed, then they're not going to work.

So needless to say, I'm feeling some unreadiness right in this conversation because I see us looking at a lot of the symptoms, but I'm not seeing us really talk about the root cause.

Right?

The root cause is silos don't speak to each other the root cause.

Because when I heard the story I said unfortunately this is not a one off.

This is a normative behavior.

There are students that just don't matter.

There are students that are just not seen.

I'm in districts all the time and there are students that are just not seen.

And we really need to focus.

I don't want us to take it out of and look at a systemic approach.

I want us to hold each and every individual.

Going back to what Michael introduced and I heard you, it resonated in your thoughts as well.

Kathy, is accountability regardless.

If I'm a 6th grade teacher, a 7th grade teacher or 8th grade teacher in a middle school, am I holding myself accountable for just having a knowledge of all students that are supposed to be there?

Just because they're not in my class doesn't mean that I don't have to know their names.

I want us to really focus on the human precept of systems and then map back to humanizing approach to education what I often see in systems.

And that's just how the system is.

And this is not to cast doubt or aspersions, but this is just how the education system is set up in the United States is there's a blame gay or.

It's not my job, but if we really look at the system, it's everyone's job.

Absolutely.

We must hold each other accountable as well as ourselves.

Who am I?

Who are we?

You got to get to the we first before who we understand, who do.

Who do we serve?

And I don't hear a lot of we talk in schools.

I see it plastered on mission statements and vision statements and core values, but I don't see we activated.

I think we.

We live in this world for some reason of almost a level of fear.

We don't.

We don't dare push.

We don't dare say everything you just said that we.

We don't want anyone, you know, we don't want to hurt any feelings.

We don't want to offend anyone.

And.

And this.

This isn't, you know, about blame.

This is about reality of looking in the mirror.

It's about those.

Those internal pieces of understanding who we are, why we're here, why we choose to be in this space, that we're responsible for other people's children, and how do we together ensure that we are supporting each and every student, that we have the absolute honor to serve.

So that means shifting a focus from being reactive to being intentional before there's a problem.

Right.

We need to make sure that we build.

Right.

That we have this moral responsibility.

Right.

To not allow invisibility and that we have to.

And that you do something about that before you allow any child to be invisible.

Right.

That you intentionally create systems and as individuals, work within those systems because the system and the individuals, the adults, believe that each student matters, each student is valuable, each student belongs, and that we are not going to allow invisibility.

I think it's very intentional.

Absolutely.

Instead of being reactive.

Right.

It's one thing to react after the fact and go, oh, But I think if you really want to eliminate invisibility, you have to do it in an anticipatory way.

You have to be intentional about it from the beginning.

So I'm gonna add a word to that.

You have to be proactive.

Yes.

Right.

So if you're looking at.

And I'll pull from Cozy's and Posna's, a leadership challenge.

And one of the five exemplary commitments for leadership is that we have to be, as exemplary leaders, proactive.

We have to see it before it even comes.

But in order to be able to do that, we have to be collaborative by nature.

We have to build community.

We have to have relationship, and therefore, we have to be committed.

And that's what, that's, you know, we all come into this space with different levels of commitment.

Oh, we work in on purpose, for a purpose.

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm seeing various levels of purpose when we come into these spaces.

Kathy brings out a good point.

And I've said this on previous sessions.

We are in loco parentes.

So when, when students come into the space, we're their parents because their parents are absent.

So I think about the, the, the.

The student that you share with me, Grant, and all the students that we come across.

I don't parent like that.

So how are we parenting?

Are we parenting students?

And I'm not saying that we have full responsibility for students, but I'm saying where is the empathy?

Where is the love?

The stuff that fills the belief gap?

Where is that and how is that evidenced in our practice every day?

And when you say proactive, Lisa, what I hear is that when we're proactive, we are not relying on loss to galvanize us.

But being proactive means we understand from the get go what hangs in the balance, and we are ready to make our peace with the highest of stakes.

Right?

We begin with a tenant, and the tenant is simple and clear.

Each life is distinct and irreplaceable.

That's the tenant.

That's the starting point.

We don't walk through the door without a complete and deep resonating understanding of the tenant and every face we have the opportunity to pass.

In our hallways, in the parking lots, in our classrooms, on the fields, in all of the spaces where we encounter those we serve, we look into that face, we hold that person in regard,

and do we treat them with dignity?

Dignity?

Yeah.

I was in a conversation recently where we're asking a student's pronouns and ensuring that, you know, a team of people were, you know, treating that student with dignity and understanding for who that individual is as, as a human.

And it was interesting because there were, there were people at the table that, you know, said, well, I, I just, I just avoid it because I don't want to.

Which, you know, is so common, right?

So let me just avoid it so then I don't mess up.

And I said, has anybody, has anybody asked the student, does anybody talk to this human to understand who they are?

And so we can ensure that we do know and we do care and it does matter.

So when we avoid that, that student, really, the message is, I'm invisible, right?

I. I don't matter.

So when we avoid pronouns, when we avoid Knowing a name because we don't want to mispronounce it.

When we, you know, we.

We avoid these things.

Instead of having the conversations and attempting to understand who these humans are, we.

The message is very clear.

I am invisible.

I am not distinctive and irreplaceable.

And so future readiness, innovation, rooted in humanity, coherent human systems, none of that's easy.

That's not easy work.

That's why we're going to be talking about it season after season, right?

Because it's hard work and it requires a different level of commitment and a different level of whether you want to use the word proactive, intentionality, whatever word you like there, right.

That we can't create.

We can't create an environment where no student is invisible, where no student experience is not mattering.

Right.

Unless we intentionally or proactively seek to do that.

It has to be our intention.

It has to be our intention.

And when that is our intention, it causes us to think and act differently, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Because within that system, using the example, the conversation I just had, so within the system there, it isn't set up to ensure that when that student enters a virtual space, their name and their pronouns are correct.

So if the system shows something different, then how.

That's why the adults are questioning it.

So which if we.

We don't.

We don't.

It's back to Michael's point.

You.

You can't have one without the other.

So if you have the systems and then the adults can live into that, if the system pushes against what the adult is trying to do, then we're questioning, okay, what, what's happening?

Because we need to ensure this student is treated with.

With that level of dignity and mattering wherever they go, not just in my space, because I know.

Because then the next teacher may not know because the system doesn't support that.

What I find interesting is on the national landscape, schools can be considered excellent without all students being counted.

Let me further clarify.

Grant and I work together often, and there is a vignette that we use and one of our sessions, and we really focus on true case study around chronic absenteeism.

The student attendance rate is 97%.

Right.

So it seems like the school is doing really well.

And, you know, when you present that in front of a group of.

And in my case, it was aspiring principals and, and, you know, school district leaders aspiring, they said, well, Monroe, that looks really good.

And I said, well, what about the 3%?

What about those?

Didn't count.

So it appears to be great.

But there are still those who are invisible.

So I think about the young man or the young lady or the student that we open our session with today.

That student would have been in the 3%, and that student clearly did not matter.

Right.

So I want us to really think about how are we defining excellence in education?

Do all students really matter?

Then I go back to two seasons ago where we asked ourselves, are we killing dreams or are we cultivating hope?

This is what we have to sit with if we want to develop these systems where there's no boundaries or barriers and there's true learning in community.

And all humans matter and we treat them with dignity and they're irreplaceable and with respect, we got to sit with ourselves.

Are we killing dreams or are we cultivating hope?

Because coherence is on multi levels.

Right?

Coherence is about the system, but coherence is also about the individual who works within that system.

Because together, students will continue to be invisible if we focus only on each adult.

And they'll continue to be invisible if we focus only on a system.

It's when we put it all together that we create a safety net.

An intentional, proactive, responsive, responsive safety net.

That's going to eradicate invisibility.

Right.

And I, I loved Alicia's line.

I don't parent like that.

No, Right.

I love that.

Right.

Because, you know, we don't.

We don't.

We don't allow our own children to be invisible.

That's right.

Right.

Absolutely.

We don't.

So incoherence is rarely loud.

It's quiet, looks like assumptions, silos, delayed follow up.

Interesting, interesting values and opinions.

I thought someone knew.

But students, they experience all of this holistically.

They don't experience it in fragmented ways.

They experience it from a holistic human perspective.

They experience whether they are seen.

Coherence is not about bureaucratic, it's protective.

I love that word.

Coherence is protective.

Innovation rooted in humanity is not about adding programs.

It's about designing adult systems so aligned, so deliberate and so disciplined and manned by amazing humans that have done some of the work that they need to do that no student can quietly disappear.

Invisibility is not neutral and coherence isn't optional.

We'll see you next week in the Wheelhouse.

And that's a wrap of episode three of season 12.

A sincere thank you to the Wheelhouse team, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa and Dr. Alicia Munro for continuing this conversation around future Ready schools.

Innovation rooted in humanity, built through coherent innovation human systems.

If this episode prompted reflection, share it with a colleague because coherence doesn't spread through slogans, it spreads through shared examination of practice.

You can connect with Students Matter on Instagram or LinkedIn, or reached out directly to Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Munro or me, Dr. Grant Chandler.

Additional resources and links are in the show Notes.

Until next time, see every student, protect the system and keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.