Dr. Sonya Murray We Not Me
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Dr. Sonya Murray: First of all, I wanna tell you before we even get started, I loved your questions. I was like, oh yes. Yes. Everyone. I was like, how does she know me so well? I mean, that's the part, and I mean, it's just, it was really, really awesome to see, like the questions that you asked spoke directly to the work, which lets me know that this conversation is just gonna be so great.
Um, well, I
Dr. Harding: read through your website and I think that we have [00:01:00] a lot of synergy between the two of us. We do, we do. Yeah, I think, I don't know your story, that's why I'm really interested to see Yeah. What you have to tell me. 'cause I think that we probably have a lot in common, which is one of the things that I really like about the podcast.
Um, I don't know about you, but I was one of those, um, kids and I'm glad I'm recording now 'cause this might be good stuff that I'll throw in the podcast later. Sure. Um, I was one of those kids in school that, it didn't matter where you put me, I was gonna talk to whoever I sat next to. I'm guilty.
Dr. Sonya Murray: That's me all day long.
I love people. I love talking. Yes. I'm that person. I'm that person Now, like in the grocery store, random people are just talking to me and I'm talking to them. Like, I just like learning from people, I really do. And I like connecting with people. I get my energy from
Dr. Harding: people. Yes. Yeah. The, I love learning from people thing.
I [00:02:00] don't know if you have this in St. Louis. But I went to the most interesting thing yesterday. So we have this thing in Kansas City called 1 million Cups. Really? It had four entrepreneurs. And yesterday they had an international delegation. So they had people from all over the world, um, who had been selected by the United States Embassy in their country.
What. I know it was incredible for their leadership in, um, entrepreneurship in their country. So there were people from, um, Malawi from Tunisia, from Tanzania, um, Bolivia, Venezuela, Germany and they. Just kind of came and we had coffee and they talked about entrepreneurship in their country and they kind of touched on education and skills building and I was just like, I was just eating it up like hungry.
I would be like, I just [00:03:00] wanna sit here and listen to you talk because. Like in so many ways, I feel like, you know, we're fed this line that in America we're so far ahead and we're not at all, no, we're not all, I'm listening to them talk about education in Tanzania where they're focusing on skill building and post-secondary effectiveness.
I'm like, they've got it going on. What?
Dr. Sonya Murray: What are we doing? What are we, well, I think it's like, it's the propaganda many times that we're fed and we're told that, but once you visit other places, that's why I'm so excited that I've been able to travel and see other experiences. You start to see it.
Really true, you know? Right. And, you know, we, we do adhere many times to what we see in the news and what we're being fed. And it's just not true. Yeah. It's
not.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah. Oh, I would've loved that. I would've [00:04:00] probably met every single person. And that's, and that's, I wanna, I'm sure you did.
Dr. Harding: You might wanna Google it because, uh, and it's not always education, like it's just businesses like, and that just fascinates me.
Like what makes. What, what is, so what makes people so passionate about stuff that they're willing to give up the comfort of a nine to five. Yeah. To follow their passion. But a lot of times it's, you know, student related or kid related. Yeah. Which is really interesting, but it's all over the world.
This 1 million cups and it's, that's
Dr. Sonya Murray: really good. 1 million cups. Yeah. I gotta look it up. I gotta learn more about that. It's totally
Dr. Harding: free. Weekly on Wednesday mornings, you can just go.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah. And, and you know, even, uh, as I think about this work, much of it is about relationship building. It's all relational.
Yeah. If people would just get out of their own way. Right. Just, and just open themselves up to new perspectives and new [00:05:00] ideas and new opportunities. Because I'm the leader, I don't have to have all the answers. There may be someone on my team who. They may have more answers than I do, and that's okay.
You know, I tell my own team, we just had a meeting, we meet monthly with, uh, huddles and we talked about how like, I don't always have to be the one speaking. I don't. There's so much brilliance and talent on my team. You take the lead. If you see there's a direction we should go, interject that so we all can learn from you.
Like, no, I don't even want people to know who the leader is because our team is so strong. You know, how amazing would that be, right? Yeah. Right. And people are like, who's the leader? That's what you want. That's what schools need. Yeah. 'cause nobody can know everything. No one can. And that's okay.
I know a lot of things. I have to know everything. I
Dr. Harding: love it.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah.
Dr. Harding: Okay, so I love this. I love where we're going with all of this. Okay, [00:06:00] so, um, so we had some technical difficulties getting started. So we've been chatting for a while. So we skipped the whole introduction part because we were busy, um, talking while we were getting the microphone set up.
Um, so. I think we have so much in common and we could probably talk all day. Um, and I would love to do that. Yes. Um, but doing all that, I, um, I totally forgot to ask you about your background. So, yeah. Dr. Murray, tell us a little bit about about you. What, what led you to education? I'm assuming you started as a teacher.
I
Dr. Sonya Murray: did, I started as a teacher, so I thought I was gonna be a journalist. Okay. Isn't that funny? Just, I tell everybody I was gonna be on channels 2, 5, 8, and 10. That was, that's very specific. Very specific. Right. But my, um, my aunt was a teacher and she would let me. Support her in like planning lessons and I fell in love with it, to be honest [00:07:00] with you.
I really did. So I switched, I was, I think I was maybe a sophomore. I switched my major. To education. And I started working at this this daycare, but in the evening it was really like a like a, almost like a student center for students once they got out of school from like four to six. They would meet with me and I started planning lessons for them.
So, um, among looking at her and her work and her passion, she also was a teacher of the year, so she loved it and she inspired me. And so working with those students, I started creating lessons for them and I just fell in love. With the whole education idea. And that's the direction that I went. After that I ended up going to ow State College finishing my degree there.
And then my my fast track role was that of a teacher and I fell in love with it. My first experience was teaching fifth grade. A Normandy school [00:08:00] district pine Lawn Elementary School, and even though I have the five course framework now, I started building that five course framework. Even back then through building relationships with students.
And when you've been in education for a while, you start to see those students. So building those small nuggets and finding what their passions were. Later I started to see that was the direction that their path would go and their life would go. And so, one such student was Michael Brown, who, uh, we know about his his deep tragedy.
What a lot of people didn't know was that he was my student and he also loved math. He was going to go to Vater Rock College before. The untimely passing. And so, you know, so many of my students, I see them in the grocery stores. I see them when I'm out and about and they tell me that really [00:09:00] the what I fed them and the seed that I planted early led them to the path that they're in now, many of them.
And so I try to, in my work, tell. Educators that you don't get to select the moments that students pick. And those moments could later lead them to the path or their career later in life. So we need to be very intentional about what we do. So from there, I ended up, working in the Normandy School District for some years.
I worked in another charter school district for some years, left there and moved to the Achievement Network in Cleveland, Ohio. And I supported schools across the state with some phenomenal gains, 10 times the gains of schools who were not partnering with us. Fast track that to starting equity matters and academic or accelerated education consultants, [00:10:00] because I kept seeing there was a missing conversation and that conversation was, do you fundamentally believe that the students in front of you can achieve at high levels?
Do you really believe that? Yeah. So we would get to the core of that, and that is what led me to doing the work with a EC.
Dr. Harding: I love that. I think that is I think that's a core value that we need to address first. Yeah. Is that fundamental belief system. Yeah. Somebody else that I interviewed, um, that hasn't aired yet, you would love him as well.
His name is Tim Tarantine. He's been a good friend of mine for a long time. Oh, nice. You heard of him? No, I have not. I would love to connect. His na, his company's name is, um, translators Consulting Group. But he talks about the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Oh, yes.
Dr. Harding: Yeah. I love it. Yeah, so true. Yeah.
Dr. Sonya Murray: I, I, uh, I love that I, uh, talk with leaders a lot about [00:11:00] disrupting status quo.
And to disrupt it, you have to know that it exists, right? And it exists. It's in everybody's school. It's in everyone's district. So you have to know that it's there and then put strategies in place. We can't do this to change it. Instead, we have to talk about core values. We have to talk about our why.
And then we need to really understand and acknowledge that we may have some mental models around it.
Dr. Harding: Yeah. You have to acknowledge there's a problem,
Dr. Sonya Murray: right?
Dr. Harding: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I love it. Yeah, so. We had already talked about, um, you know, what, what inspired you to create that, to support that educational change.
So I love that. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about reading proficiency and, um, how you frame your belief system about acceleration versus remediation, because I really like how you talk about that. So na, as we know, national reading, national [00:12:00] data shows reading proficiency has declined in recent years, especially amongst our most vulnerable students.
And so how you frame it is different than how a lot of people frame it. A lot of times we talk about how we need to remediate, this, but what you talk about is accelerating the learning instead of remediation. Can you talk a little bit about what the difference is and, um, why you believe acceleration is a more effective approach, approach than remediation?
Dr. Sonya Murray: Sure, I would love to. So acceleration focuses on providing those students like. Those grade level access and content opportunities, uh, regardless of their performance level, their ability level, whereas remediation focuses on those isolated skills that. May not connect to what students need to know in the now.
Hurricane Katrina gave us an [00:13:00] excellent example of why we should not focus on remediating students skills. Those leaders in Louisiana decided that they were going to remediate students' learning and test scores. Even student performance in general, regressed to, uh, levels that were not acceptable. And so that provides us just a, a real time example of why we want to meet students where they are.
They're all capable of achieving at high levels when we believe in their, uh, capabilities. And so we want to take the approach that. No matter where you are on the continuum, I can see you and then help you reach the bar. I often talk about you may crawl to the bar, you may walk to the bar, you may skip to the bar, but the bar is the same for everyone.
I have an example that I often use with [00:14:00] schools and districts, and it's just to ask them, if I were to ask you if an elephant could draw a self portrait, would you believe me? Many people say, no, the elephant can't do it. Well, I show them a visual of the elephant actually drawing the self-portrait, and I said, that's the type of blind faith and belief that we need to bring to every single student.
Many times we're viewing them through a distorted view of our own mental models. Mm-hmm. Our own prejudices and our own biases. And we all have them. We do. We all have them. And so students should not have to navigate through our beliefs about their capabilities. They should be able to thrive regardless.
Just let them try. Just let them try. And so that is the reason why acceleration has worked. I've had evidence and proof of it working with schools and districts, [00:15:00] and very proud of the fact that when teachers come together and they build that collective efficacy, what John Hadie tells us is the number one effect size.
When they believe, fundamentally believe that the students. In front of them can achieve at high levels. They do because our actions follow our beliefs.
Dr. Harding: I a hundred percent agree with you and I almost think that we need to reassure people that we understand that sometimes the low expectations are with the best intentions.
Oh, yes. Right. We understand that you're trying to protect kids because failure's hard, right? Yeah. So I have a 21-year-old son with Down Syndrome.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yes. He told me that. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Dr. Harding: He is doing incredible things. Yeah. Um, he does things all the time that I I believed 10 years ago I was setting high expectations for him, and he has smashed every.
Every ceiling [00:16:00] that I unintentionally put on him.
Yeah.
Dr. Harding: Like right now he works for the Kansas City Current, which is the women's soccer team.
I love it.
Dr. Harding: He gets in, , transportation independently. Um, and he goes there and he takes tickets and he, , counts the tickets independently. He is among thousands of people.
You know, 10 years ago we had a hard time with him eloping, and his speech was very difficult for the unfamiliar listener. And now he can carry on communications. I can send him into, uh, we, we did live in a small town and now we're in Kansas City and I can send him into the grocery store and he can buy what he wants and he does self checkout.
Like for him to navigate self checkout I would've been like, you're insane 10 years ago. Like, I believe that he can do great things, but self-checkout is probably not gonna be one of them. Mm-hmm. He does COVID time. You
Dr. Sonya Murray: know, well, you believed it. You believed in [00:17:00] him and your actions followed, and it's why he's thriving now.
Dr. Harding: Yeah. But I think we need to acknowledge that sometimes we understand that sometimes you're helping, you're trying to be helpful, right? Yes. But it's also honorable to let kids fail. Right. Dignity of risk is a thing. Yes. It's okay to let kids fail because that's how we learn. Yes. So sometimes being overprotective is harmful.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yes. Well, I call it love you to failure. Yeah. I'm loving you to failure. Yeah. And it's not done with any I, right. It is truly done from a place of love. So I tell teachers sometimes to fold their arms and then fold them the opposite way. And I said, how that feels uncomfortable. All you wanna do is hold your arms back the original way, but.
If we're going [00:18:00] to do different things that leads to greater impact for students, we may have to form, fold our arms a little differently.
Dr. Harding: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Sonya Murray: And so, and it may feel uncomfortable.
And
Dr. Sonya Murray: that's okay. Giving that student the opportunity to grapple with grade level task when you feel like it's going to make them cry or they're not going to like it.
You are going to walk away saying, uh, well they, they won't enjoy this, but ultimately you are doing what they need to do to find success later. And so we have a lot of conversation about that, not blaming anyone for the status quo that's living in the schools and the districts instead saying, um.
How can we find ways to make some simple changes to practice by disrupting our own mental models and thoughts and beliefs about students' capabilities? Yeah.
Dr. Harding: Yeah. Yeah. Educators are nurturers and [00:19:00] caretakers. Yes. And so it's really hard to wrap our heads around what the line is between being trauma informed and understanding, um, where that line is that we are being 100% mindful of how our kids are coming to us while also pushing them to reach their full potential.
Yes. Um,
Dr. Harding: those lines are hard because they're individual for each student. Yes. So, um, so yeah, that's hard work.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah. Well, you know, Retta Hammond calls it being that warm demander, and that's having that explicit focus on you're building that rapport and the trust with students while at the same time holding those high expectations.
Yeah. That's what we want because we want to set them for CO up for college and careers later. We don't know what their path is going to be, but we want them to have the necessary skills to be able to tackle that [00:20:00] around what their own passion is. All students are geniuses, every single student, and when we take that type of mindset, our actions typically follow.
And I'm not saying it's easy work. There's no quick fix to any of this, no quick fix, but. It starts with our beliefs. It really does.
Dr. Harding: That's funny that you say that. Um, I tell districts if they're work looking to partner with me, I'm like, if you're looking for a quick fix or an easy button, I'm probably not the person you wanna partner with the same thing.
I'll work with you and I will stand with you and partner with you and do the hard work with you. But if an easy button is what you're looking for, I'm not, I'm not the person you're looking for. Absolutely.
Dr. Sonya Murray: You know, I say the same thing. I, I do. So funny. I tell, but I do provide examples of schools and organizations who over time, through what I call [00:21:00] consistency.
Right through, and I say those three big Cs is really like clarity. Getting real clear about your instructional priorities and what you want to accomplish at your school or district. Second, that coherence, aligning all of your actions to that clarity. What that why is what those clear instructional priorities are.
This collective efficacy, that as a team, we believe we can achieve this and we're going to achieve this. And then the core, the solid instructional. Having that solid instructional framework that will help the entire district or school move in a way that finds success for all students. Yeah, that's it.
And you have to be zeroed in the, the school that, uh, we're very proud of that I've been supporting now for six years, started as a failing school. They now are one of the highest performing schools in the state of Ohio. [00:22:00] And their same vision that they set six years ago is the vision they have today.
Those same instructional priorities are the instructional priorities that they have today. They've made simple tweaks, but the core is the same. And when new people come on board, they know what their focus is. It's very clear. Um, they know. Coherently exactly what in lockstep, what the expectations are, and it's communicated to parents.
It's communicated to staff. There's no magic bullet there. They just are very well aligned. And lastly is the core they focus on. Teaching and learning to the point of student mastery. That's what I did as a former principal. That's what I did as a district administrator, and I wasn't perfect. I didn't always get it right.
I didn't, Nikki, I didn't always get it right, but I'll tell you this, my passion was deep. I cared deeply about my students. I built [00:23:00] solid relationships and. Knowing that and staying true to what we said, what I said I was going to achieve, always got better results.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Sonya Murray: And that's the work that really is it.
Dr. Harding: So one of the things that I know is often a really big challenge for school districts is sustainability, particularly when there is such high turnover.
Yeah.
Dr. Harding: Oh. Um, so how do you work with districts who have experienced success after you've worked with them? Yeah. How do you work with them on implementing policies, practices and procedures that are in alignment and sustainable for the long term?
Yeah. That are after you are done partnering with them and they're independently working, how, how do you work with them on that sustainability piece?
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yes. So like, that's such a great question. So, at the onset many times there's more of a heavy lift on me or my [00:24:00] team, right? To work with this district to try to model or the school to model.
But we use a gradual release. Approach to where it became, it becomes more, uh, sustained through their own actions and their own beliefs and their own policies. And so even though at the onset there's a lot of handholding, there's a lot of walking alongside and walking together, we slowly try to create structures and systems to the point where they then start to embed those solid practices.
And so we get more solidly around your core values and among your why. Because when you focus on the core values and the why and you steep that into the practice, it becomes more sustainable because people are operating on what they believe and what they deeply care about. So that's the one. And it sounds simple, but it is not like it's a [00:25:00] lot.
It's very challenging to keep that going. And secondly, it's like. Focusing on that clear. Priority. There are so many different priorities and I tell many times superintendents that we work with our district level leaders, even principals who we work with. When you state a priority and you even state three priorities, the people in charge with implementing those.
When you say three, they hear 50 because there are so many nuanced. Expectations, but beyond those priorities. So if you're naming six and there's research that shows that six or more priorities actually becomes counterproductive. To you improvement. So the very first thing we do is focus. So when we name those, we say, one, are they connected to your core beliefs?
Two, are they connected to your why? Have you communicated your why to your entire [00:26:00] community? And then. Have you named some priorities that won't just serve you in the next three months or six months, but will these priorities serve you over time? So make sure that they are the right ones that will sustain you?
Because people are gonna change. The only thing that's constant is change,
right?
Dr. Sonya Murray: It's going. They change will happen. It is just going to happen. And so how do you create and focus on those? Uh, we call it like timely versus timeless. There are timeless, timely expectations, but what are those timeless? Core practices that will sustain you over time.
And we have some evidence of what those are, and that's what we really try to work with, uh, schools and districts around so that there's some sustainability even after we're gone.
Dr. Harding: I love it. I love it. Okay. So you wrote a book titled [00:27:00] Yes. Serving Equity. Yes. And in that book you talk about your five course framework.
Yes. Can you talk to our listeners a little bit about what that is?
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yes, my pleasure. And so I kept going into schools and districts, and I would see the same type of practices. There are key expectations, as I mentioned, timeless expectations that no matter what, when we implement these key practices, we start to see changes in reversing of that gap of the fact that some students are just not thriving in school, and so.
Because these seem like, unrelated concepts or unrelated focus areas I created because I'm a foodie. I love to eat. I love to eat that. I love to eat. [00:28:00] So you two. And so I thought, how can I create a five course framework or a model that will help people to understand? What those critical steps are to accelerate students' learning.
Well, the first thing we have to do is plan for who's in front of us. Just as you're planning a meal, you think about who are you planning for, who are you planning for? So being mindful of. How am I going to make sure that this student or this group of students can thrive in schools? And so that's the very first part.
It's just planning for it. Then we go to course one, which is the soup course. Everybody loves a good hearty soup, but at the same time, that soup course speaks to how do you build relationships? Through every experience that I've had with students from all different backgrounds. What I have learned is when you build a relationship with you, [00:29:00] they trust you and they want to learn.
I think it was Rita Pearson who said, students don't learn from people they don't like. So, so how do we create deep opportunities? And that's that course one to really focus on building those relationships. Second is our next course is really the appetizer course. And that appetizer course talks about just like a good appetizer.
You have varied experiences and you have, uh, various. Curriculum, you have various data sources, but how do I look at those and plan what's best for the students who are in my learn in my learning space? How do I plan for them? How do I make sure my curriculum is culturally relevant? How do I make sure that my data.
It's not just summative, but I give it to them informatively as we go, and then we look at the salad course. A good salad has all different ingredients, just like students bring varied perspectives and they bring mental models to the learning space. So I [00:30:00] wanted to have just a really good framework that you could use to think about all these seemingly unrelated concepts mm-hmm.
To serve students what they need. And that core, uh, main core. As the entree, and that speaks to just those solid important practices, the science of reading. I even talk a lot about the soul principles. Uh, and so just really thinking about, okay. What are those acceleration practices that I need to implement?
'cause that's the most important course. And the last course is the dessert course are the technology, which is important, but too much of it will make you sick. Just like, um, I like it too much dessert will make you sick. And so we started seeing going in classrooms. Teachers were letting. People were letting technology take place of high quality teaching and learning.
And so in that de dessert course, we say, how do we center [00:31:00] technology only as a support to the teaching and learning and not in place of it. Okay. So that's the, that's the course. I
Dr. Harding: love it. Thank you. I love it. That was very well thought out. All of it.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Oh, I love it. I can talk about it all day.
I love it. I love it. At one course, you could talk about literally for. A month. You really could, you could go deep in each of the courses, but all of those courses are necessary for schools and districts to thrive.
Dr. Harding: I love how you focus on, um, the importance of relationships. I've always believed that that is important about learning because learning requires such vulnerability and it doesn't matter how old you are, you have to first admit that you don't know something in order to, um, be open to learning something. So, you know, something that you say is no significant learning can occur without a significant relationship.
Yes.
Dr. Harding: And you talk about [00:32:00] how, , important it is to, , look at the whole child. Yes. So, , how can school leaders cultivate a culture where strong teacher student relationships and social emotional support go hand in hand with rigorous academics so that students feel safe and inspired to excel?
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah, great question.
The wonderful Dr. Linda Darling Hammond. Who also endorsed my book I'm so grateful to her. She gave us a wonderful blueprint around what it means to focus on the whole child, and I always call it c the social. The emotional and the academic, they can't thrive alone. It's very challenging to just focus only on the academic aspects.
Instead, just as in my five course framework, we have to see the whole child in order to plan what they need and in order to think about that. So what schools can do is to take. An [00:33:00] assessment around how well they truly are seeing all of their students. That's a great place to start. I have a strategy that I suggest to people, and it's so simple, but it's very powerful.
It says just that for two minutes over a 10 day period, connect with that student about life, just about life. Have a conversation with them. And build those relationships so then you can center that academics. Sometimes I believe we get lost in the pressures and the expectations and the demands. It's real.
I did too, of school and what's next and what's critical, what's important. But in essence, when students recall you and they experience you, they remember how you made them feel. Many years ago, I mean, I have a second grade teacher who lives in my head rent free [00:34:00] today. She cultivated my writing and she would put my writing up on the wall.
It's probably why I'm an author today. It truly is. And so when I talk to people about that, no matter how much noise. There is, and I, no matter how, how many mandates or expectations or assessments you need to give at the end of the day, have you built a solid relationship, one where the students trust you and that they are prepared to learn from you because students truly learn when they feel connected to you.
I did some deep research. My , dissertation was about. Honoring students' voices.
Oh, I love it.
Dr. Sonya Murray: And yes, it was, and it was about, and what we learned, what I learned was that when students. Saw a teacher read a book, or I love a book, that's the book that they would all want to read as well. And so knowing that we have an opportunity to [00:35:00] build some solid relationships, just through connecting with and talking with students in the fast-paced world, just remember you won't be able to select which moments they remember.
And so every time you have an opportunity to engage with a student, make sure it's a meaningful one and it's one that they may be able to remember for the long haul.
Dr. Harding: . I think that is really important to remember and it may be something to challenge our listeners to, what are moments you remember about your school?
Yeah. And think about that. You know, I think about. You know, my teachers and various like just highlights because you don't remember. You remember very little actually you do about what happened when you were in school, right? So, um, you know, remember the small interactions and there's positive ones and there's negative ones, you know?
Yeah. I remember, you know, the interaction of being told to write my name [00:36:00] on the board. When I. Thinking I was helping my friend with an assignment, but actually I was told not to talk. You know, going back to our conversation earlier where I was in trouble for talking to everybody around me, there was a pattern.
I will admit that, but you know, also all of those other teachers that, you know, offered kind words of encouragement. Yeah. You don't get to choose the meaningful moments to kids. So
Dr. Sonya Murray: yes, be curious. Yes. I talk about one of my students in my book, mark and chapter two, just really briefly, because this story is why I wear yellow today.
Because yellow stands for optimism. Yellow stands for belief and hope and positivity. And I remember that Mark at the time when I took that building as a principal. Everybody met me at the door and they told me with good intention, right, that he had had some academic challenges and some behavioral challenges.
And so I got [00:37:00] to know him and he was in my office by seven 30. School started at seven 30. He was there by 7 31 like it was routinely, he was right there, but he. I started to learn that he was being raised by a family member. His mother wasn't present, and we started connecting. And I did that two by 10 strategy, just so we talk about, I started talking to him and an essay came across my desk and it talked about what would you like to be as an adult?
And he was there every day. So I'm like, well, you're here every day. I want you to try the essay. And he had internalized all the beliefs that everybody had about him. And so he told me, I can't write an essay. Have you seen my disciplinary, all the things that people said about him, he told me because I built that relationship with him, he able to try and come to find out he was a really good writer, but.
No one saw past that because of his behavior. His [00:38:00] essay made it to the top 50, the top 10, and then it was the top two. His essay was number one. We went to this event and he was recognizing he, they gave him a yellow scarf, he wore the scarf, and it changed his life. It literally changed his life. So when I talk about moments, it's moments like those that completely changed his life.
He's now a college graduate. His family member wrote me and said, thank you for, uh, believing in him when he was trying to give up on himself. So that is the work. That's the work. And so when I talk to, like to leaders and I talk to teachers, I tell them that is what we have to narrow in on. Like how are we creating moments?
How are we creating opportunities for students to thrive and not like almost filtering them and their perceptions and their abilities through our own unfiltered beliefs and capabilities of what they can achieve.
Dr. Harding: [00:39:00] Yeah,
Dr. Sonya Murray: the story, if that story was long, but, oh, beautiful story. It's a true story. You know, it's a true story.
I got to see him and we took photos and he's just, he is completely transformed from one interaction, one interaction. Changed him and he started wearing, now he wore the yellow scarf all throughout the year because he wanted people to ask him why he, why he wore it and what it meant, and it, it later meant something so positive and it started to really determine who he was to other people, which is just so amazing.
And I talk about it in chapter two of my book.
Dr. Harding: I love that.
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah.
Dr. Harding: Okay. So I am certain that you and I are on the same page, that I think one of the most dangerous phrases we can say in education is because that's the way we've always done it. Yeah. I hate that. It's very triggering for me. Yeah. So, [00:40:00] um, I think that people, um, hold that dear 'cause that's comfortable for them.
Yeah. I think they look at that whatever they put in that category. In the moment, as that's conventional wisdom, right? Yeah. As an innovator, what is a widely held belief or conventional wisdom , in your, , experience that you feel is holding schools back?
Dr. Sonya Murray: Yeah. Um, so quite a bit. One is that I believe we all were taught and learned that remediation is the way to meet students.
We have the what I need time. And I'm not saying that there's not some part in the day where you may need to meet students where they are and give them some skills, but we wanna do it in the context or with the framing. I'm getting you to the bar. I'm getting you to accelerated learning, and I'm seeing you your whole as a whole child.
I'm [00:41:00] seeing what you need to get there. So a commonly held misconception is that there's a quick fix that this work is going to happen, um, soon. And that it, and also that someone else is going to come and save me and fix this for me. The reality is the answers are already in the school or in the district or in the learning space.
The answers are there with the people charged with that expectation. So many times it's just, so I go back to that folding your arms. It is folding your arms differently and considering new perspectives and new ways to use whole child education. The science of learning, the research that we, deep research that we have around that, the collective efficacy with the people who are in the learning space to ensure that all students thrive in schools, and it's possible for everyone.
It's not [00:42:00] just reserved for certain groups or because this group of students come from, uh, a certain demographic or a background that they can't learn at high levels. Every single child has genius potential. And so I think we have to, uh, learn some of the deep beliefs and the mental models that we have around what's possible.
Dr. Harding: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Okay, so how can people get ahold of you?
Dr. Sonya Murray: Oh my gosh. So contact me at [email protected]. And yeah, reach out to me there. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm on all of the social media, uh, channels the same way through, uh, info at accelerated education consulting.org.
Supporting schools and districts now in five different states. But we [00:43:00] love this work. It's a deep passion of mine to do this work because I know that the potential is there for every district and every student and yeah, so would love to support any of our listeners in any way possible with what your needs are.
Dr. Harding: Yeah. Well, thank you Dr. Murray. It has been thank you. An absolute delight visiting with you and we need to stay in touch and I would love to have coffee with you in person. Oh,
Dr. Sonya Murray: that would be so amazing. You are just amazing. I just appreciate you so much.
