 Hello everyone, this is Ross at Teacher Talk at the most influential blog on education in the UK today. I am with Armand Dusha. Armand, good afternoon. Good morning. It's good morning for you, isn't it? Now, for listeners, this is our second time having a good conversation, because I did a few things wrong with our first recording. Tell us why it's good morning for you, Armand. You're over in Canada, aren't you? Which part? Yeah, I'm on the east coast of Canada, about a five-hour flight on the other side of the pond. It's a beautiful sunny day. It's the end of the school year. And it's the end of the school year, yeah. So schools out? Yep, schools out, or close to it anyway. So how long is vacation time this time of year for you? It's usually eight weeks. Well, around eight weeks. It takes about three weeks to decompress, two weeks. And then you start thinking about the new year. So it says eight weeks, but it's really about two. And we're recording during the pandemic and stuff. So what are the kind of plans for you to kind of switch off? We're still not like the UK. We're still in not necessarily full lockdown, but we can't travel between provinces yet. I'm getting my second shot soon enough. And looking to discover a lot more of my region. Oftentimes I'm on a flight somewhere else around the world, and this is going to give me a chance to reconnect with my own culture, which I think is going to be good. Yeah, I wish you all the best for a very relaxing summer holiday. Let's face it, all teachers need a good rest. So for listeners, we connected our man first about the time when you were nominated for the teacher prize. Is that right? About three or four years ago? Yeah, about three or four years ago. Yeah. So give everyone a little insight into, you know, your kind of background, what you do today in the classroom? Well, my background as a young teenager, I started coaching football soccer. And 25 years in, that brought me all over the world with our national program, Canada Games, which is a national tournament for under 23s in this area, a bit like the FA Cup in some ways for younger youth groups. I'm a university soccer, which is probably the highest level in the area apart from professional. And so that really formed sort of my want to work with youth. And then from there, I actually had a career in sales and marketing with PepsiCo before kind of connecting with my values and beliefs and realizing, you know what, I really should be in the classroom. And that was about 12 years ago. And since then, it's been a wild journey. You know, a lot of people say that the best years of your life are in high school and university. I completely disregard and don't agree with that. I think the best year of your life is always the next one. And that's pretty much what teaching has been for me. It's been a wild journey. My first teaching contract was eight different courses in middle school. I was teaching all sorts of things and it was really interesting. It was a baptism by fire. And then I moved into middle school and had a lot of success with cross curricular large scale projects that had international recognition. And then from there moved on to high school and I'm doing modern history and world issues and teaching social studies and having a wonderful time kind of looking at that aspect of things with my students. And since then it's been five years of a lot of international travel speaking, writing, written a couple of books, lots of different networks that I'm a part of that is really helping me grow. So as much as I am a teacher, it's been mostly me as a student kind of learning as I go and it's been a great journey. Yeah. Now, in terms of your subject specialism, give us some insights here because you've had an interesting path in the classroom. Yeah, I've got a bachelor's in kinesiology so I can teach sciences and physical education, health sciences, all those kinds of things and I have in the past. But I also have a minor in history. So I teach social studies and so on. And with my experience with these networks and working with UNESCO and the United Nations and all those aspects of things. I also teach world issues. So it's been a, I really have that connection between humanities practical and also research based so it's been quite interesting. And very broad and I guess all the books and all your speaking gigs around the world obviously with a pandemic that's all gone to a halt but I suspect you've been working online also last 12 months. Yes, I have actually we wrote three different papers that have kind of led some of the changes during this pandemic and the upheaval. The first one was thinking about pedagogy and an unfolding pandemic, which is really a foundational piece to many jurisdictions around the world on how they should approach things, particularly Maslow before Bloom, really looking at the social emotional aspects, the equity aspect, how we can deliver it online. Should it be track A track B, you know at home and at school learning, really looking at that full aspect and how to create partnerships so that was the first paper that we wrote. I also wrote a children's book with a friend of mine called hope where are you that was downloaded over 2 million times around the world. I wanted to bring out the aspect of our kids and how they were what they were going through and giving parents and teachers a way to start the conversation with these kids and as as it's happening. Also wrote a couple of other papers teacher leadership what does it look like in the pandemic and and a few other ones so yeah I've been doing a lot of writing in terms of webinars well we started T for co founded T for with Vikas and it was never online. I know how I was privileged to be part of it what what an achievement that was what a fantastic idea. 120,000 for the first one was incredible how many we had it was it was phenomenal and it really was the perfect timing and just the right people in place to kind of put it together with because his expertise and education from a from a networking and vision point of view and my networks in terms of the professionals that we could bring in. He's got lots of ideas of the very off the wall and he always pulls them off. Yeah, he does and it's quite it was quite incredible so that that was something else we did during this period of time and then I've been a part of. I'm thinking 50 plus webinars at this point or facilitating sessions from doing it for my local university to working with UNESCO Education International. So what what what makes you tick and what are the things that you go hunting for that are kind of your fuel, your teacher fuel. I think the first one is that I can always learn from the room. And I always consider the room smarter than me. And I think that's the first thing is I'm always digging I'm always curious and I'm always willing to sit down and learn from anybody that's in front of me. And I think that's the basis of how I teach as well is to build those relationships to be able to figure out what makes them tick to be able to help them move forward. I think that's the first one and I think the second one is really to try to leave a better place for my children and I know it sounds corny. But money doesn't really matter to me I'm in a good situation I I have a good life. I know we both working hard we're middle class. You know it's not that saying that money's easily come by I mean we're hard but it's at the base of it that's not what I value the most what I value most is having an impact on my community and my community just seems to be getting a bit larger. Yeah, well I know that feeling. I want to zoom in on the chapter that you contributed towards the fourth revolution book. Could you tell listeners a little bit more about your involvement in that particular book. Yeah, so as a global teacher prize nominee we get together all the ambassadors and the year that we got together I had pitched to the leadership of the global teacher prize which because was part of at the time. I pitched the idea of putting a book together on how to approach education and the digital age because there was already a book by Klaus Schwab's the World Economic Forum and chairman on the fourth industrial revolution. However, there's most of the people didn't really realize the impact of the fourth industrial revolution or that we were in the fourth industrial revolution. You know five six years ago. So, as we're realizing all this disruption that coming in and the disruption that's going to have on the pillars of our democracy, you know judicial legislative and executive. It's already, it's also going to have a major impact on the other two which I would consider which is media and education, which are both foundational pieces to it. Nobody was really talking about this disruption and how it was going to impact our classrooms and how the digital age was really impacting the polarization social media, the trying to understand what its role was in education that's impact. And so we brought forward this book and I pitched the idea that why don't we take some of these teachers and put a book together and really write about what does it mean to teach in this and to be forward thinking in certain in terms of being in the rooms with policymakers with politicians with business and having a real voice in how we're going to move education forward because as much as we think teachers are the ones driving education forward. There's many other partners in this, including the community parents business politicians. And if we don't have a seat at the table, then the professionals don't actually have a voice. So we thought about this would be a book that we could really bring forward and within the context of the global teacher prize and the form itself. It already had over 80 ministers of education there so it really had a large impact and we knew it was going to have a large impact so that's where we brought the book forward. And, you know, there's a lot of contribution all to this. Could you just name a few different voices so people get a sense of contributors. Yeah, so the first one would be Yelmer ever is obviously who most of your viewers were probably the system. Very much about teacher empowerment and teachers driving the professional discourse. There's Michael saw skill who is a renowned teacher and author in the US there's also Nadia Lopez from the US who is a renowned principal. Also a teacher, and then we had a Lisa Guera, who's on the Futures of Education Commission for UNESCO out of Mexico. And koon timmers who runs the global, the global learning for climate change and is a guru in his own right when it comes to digital learning so all these teachers came together and me being the co lead to drive this forward. And my aspect was really from the classroom so we had different aspects of the teaching profession and how it all comes together to try to give a really good vision of what's happening and what we think is going to happen in the future and how to progress with it. So I'm going to put in a corner at, you know, what would be your recommendations what what your predictions in terms of this digital revolution that we're currently going through and we're trying to navigate and work out what's happening and I guess covid accelerated it in some shape or form hasn't it. Yeah, I think the biggest issue that we have an education that we need to take care of is to remember that it's a human endeavor. And that the humanity really matters. In education it's gotten so big and in many jurisdictions that, and there's so many layers of leadership and so many layers of manager managers I should say that we forget at the end of the day that it's about children. And the further we remove ourselves from that decision making. It just becomes numbers and and that's dangerous and Simon Sinek writes beautifully about it in leaders he lasts. But basically it's that Milton Friedman mentality of how to deal with education and I think a lot of cuts and a lot of a lot of the decision making that has been made are made without understanding the stories behind why they were there in the first place. So that to me is the number one thing that we probably need to take care of moving forward is to remember that there's a human involved. It should be student centered and that every context is different. You cannot copy paste culture matters religion matters the community matters and what's coming out of there is something that we need to take care of and then you also have a complete reform of the system from an equity base point. That I think we are struggling with and trying to understand how this works and how do we approach it. So, so in that context, what are the current challenges in your province I suppose we narrow it down rather than looking at globally what what are the current issues for Canadian teachers, or at least in your part of the world. I think it comes down to the same thing across your extensions actually right even if it was just my province. I think the first one is very much struggling with. Where do we go from here there's been so much turmoil and so many different IDs coming forward and so many different elements and play and the polarization of politics and the way that we talk to each other that it's really about resetting are not GPS but our compass and trying to figure out okay where is north and where is north for everybody in an inclusive environment not where is north for just one group of the population. And why do I say that this is one of the issues around the world is because our cities are multicultural now. And it doesn't matter how big you are or how small you are, it varies multicultural multi multi ethnicity multi religious. And that wasn't the case 30 years ago in most countries. Right, you might have had three or four families max in bigger cities yes it was the case like London, but for most of the smaller areas it wasn't now it is and that needs a different approach. And you need to be empathetic you need to be able to build relationships you need to be able to understand multiple languages actually and how to communicate and create partnerships with those parents to be able to help those children. So, I think that's something that we are all struggling with at the moment and to try to figure out okay how do I do this how do I keep learning what are the professional development platforms that we need to develop for our teachers. Here in England, we've got a big, quite rightly a big focus on, you know, curriculum reform, inclusivity diversity, you know, rather than, you know, your traditional textbooks, a lot more role models that are referenced which is a good thing. I want to switch to some practical advice for teachers. And, you know, workloads and issue we know those problems that we all have are ubiquitous like you mentioned for all of us, regardless of where we are. In my experience is marking is always a pain in the backside for all teachers. Can we just start on that one issue and then we'll pick up one that is important to you. What are your kind of issues with marking and any recommendations. So, marking for me is, it splits in between two. You have the teachers that are kind of, not kind of you have the teachers that are really attached to the standardized testing. And the marking is then attached to that standardized test that's coming through. And I think that's a different type of marking, and it's a different type of feedback that you're giving to students then the ones that can go student centered and are not attached to a standardized test at the end of the year. So when it comes to marking for me, I always try to create whatever rubric that we're working is to co planet with students. And marking for me is not a elimination process, like you got this wrong you got this wrong you got this wrong so this is your mark. To me it's a, you are going to gain this by doing this. So the process and the journey is different. And what do I mean by that is if I'm doing a project with or if a child is doing a project. I'm with that child every step of the way. And the goal of that project is to reiterate numerous times whatever they're trying to create, be it an academic piece be it a creative piece be it a oral presentation. So the goal for me is not to see it at the end, and then give it a mark. Yeah, my goal is to be with them and help them and coach them and give them some critical feedback throughout and see them improve. Because that's really what the process is when you're in the real world, right you're reiterating numerous times before you actually give something. And if you're not you're doing you're not doing yourself justice because the more impact, the better it's going to become the more voices that are actually coming into play and giving you some critical feedback and reflection and so on. So to me it's always about gaining. Sure. Now I want to pick up on the point you made about co planning. You love a group of, you know, that polarization point some teachers think the teachers the expert other people believe that the students have to should have a say in their learning what what are your views on particularly this students co created the rubric. The funny thing is that I think the pendulum shifts on one side or the other and we talked about it a bit the voices become very polarized particularly on Twitter. And there's always an equilibrium somewhere is that you need to balance out and sometimes it's more teacher led sometimes it's more student led but there's a balance there right and it's not just one side but oftentimes when the decisions come down and you need to implement something like oh pendulum shifted all the way to that side and then all the Senate shifts all the way to the other. So I do believe that teachers need to have an expertise and there are subject expertise definitely there and you are what I would call the vision and the connector for that classroom. So the child has a voice and the child should express that voice and be able to negotiate with you and talk with you and communicate. But the child doesn't know what it doesn't know. Right, so let's say you're interested in frogs and you're a 12 year old. I am actually because I've just got tadpoles in my my new pond but I actually don't know what to do or what's going to happen. So like in this situation if that's an interest and I can connect the curriculum to you, then I am the expert I know what my curriculum talks about and maybe you talk are you a frog expert because I actually I just thought about that. I don't know why but but in that sense like if I know you like frogs and I need to teach ecosystems. This is where me as the teacher expert understands that ecosystem frogs go hand in hand. Yeah, now you feel like you're leading this but I also know where you're going. Right, I need to find an expert that can connect you to that ecosystem. Maybe you can talk to or maybe I can talk to you about okay, you like frogs. I need ecosystems. Can you produce a video on you know yeah we've talked offline that you know we're talking about the book that you're writing and the one that I'm researching right about so my one on memory that that episodic experience the personal event the frog. The semantic you've got the concepts rules and facts about the ecosystem and that's where that connection. I think you're referencing in the classroom. Yeah, it's exactly that and at the end of the day that's where I need to let go of it. So where my tests might be about certain elements of the ecosystem that a year in and year out they need to understand. That's fine but that shouldn't be the 100% of my mark the other I can do that for 20% the other 80% can really be driven by the student and really get him interested about science and about frogs and about ecosystems based off the fact that. Okay, this is a foundational piece you got to do and to be able to do this we're going to put this in your project this is going to be the third part of it you're going to do research we're going to talk about it we're going to do and then by the time they've done it. You've let go a bit of of of your power in the classroom and you've given it to the child to really embrace it and to push forward and to question and to to reframe it and to me that's where that collaboration comes in so it's not necessarily. You are the teacher expert yeah you are I mean you've gone to university you've got a degree you've got an expertise in the subject matter. And what that gives you is the ability to empower others. It's not just take that power and make yourself the sage on the stage and you are all powerful almighty dump the door or, or I actually gondolf would probably be the best reference motor the rings. It's about you being able to share that power and show for them to feel empowered and I think that's where we lose it a bit. And I think that standardized testing culture has has has driven that as well, where you feel you need to you feel like you can't let go of that because otherwise you're going to be questioned. So I use marketing as an example what would be your workload problem. The great people around you that you work with. I honestly think it's the. It's the demands on your time that are not taken into account. It's administrative duties that are now far more demanding and far more reaching than it was at one point. And it's oftentimes to it's busy work is what I would call it. It doesn't come down to what's the most important which is the kid and it's learning it's about, you know, feeling some checking somebody else's checkbox. And it's not about checking the checkbox of people in front of you. I think that managerial aspect of things and really it's, it's really a capitalistic drive a Milton Freeman's way of managing, which is, I think really sucking the life out of the profession in many ways. I don't know if it's the same in the UK, but I feel that oftentimes we're not trusted as professionals and we are professionals. It's not a check. Yeah. Well, you know, going back to your point and gelma Evers and autonomy and stuff it's. England teachers will say trust is the number one thing that they they want that autonomy and you know you do your research into kind of anything PISA OECD whatever and you look at England in comparison to other. Kind of countries we have one of the lowest autonomies in the world. You know, but one or two teachers will say well, I don't I feel very free and you'll get that in pockets. But on the whole terms of academic research, it's a real burden for teachers and I think that, you know, my life as a school leader and thinking about the checkboxes and the boxes for the boxes and all those kind of things that are evidence to bring in evaluations rather than what difference will this make to a child tomorrow and is it making the life of a teacher easier. That's the question we should all be asking all of the time. I just want to shift to kind of a focus on just some general insights from COVID from your webinar experiences just to kind of finish I suppose is what kind of messages have you heard from teachers around the world that you've been working with. You know, the struggles the kind of maybe the positive things that have come as a result of working online, you know, that kind of switch into work a little differently the new technologies that have emerged. Yeah. The two the two struggles. One is being unheard. Many teachers all over feeling unheard and disregarded in the decision making process I think that's one thing that we're hearing a lot of, even in the areas where it's working really well. It feels oftentimes like your, your voices is being drowned out by the crowd, and your professional input is not being asked for. So I think that's one thing. The second biggest struggle I believe is the day to day impact of our the decision making from our leaders, and I'm not talking school leaders here I'm talking about politicians and our health care and so on. And how every decision that was make that impacted classrooms really disrupted our abilities to deliver a really good education to our children and what do I mean by that is that every time they made changes to the operational plan. Or any time that they made changes on on the fly or that they would put something forward and then take it away. Well, a lot of these leaders they're not day to day leaders they're not the ones that manage that day to day that a school leader would do right. So I don't think they understood how much of an impact that had on the day to day lives of teachers and the ability to deliver to their students and create some sort of safety net for their students as we move forward. So I think that was, yeah, that was a major struggle. In terms of positive, the professional learning community. I think we finally hit kind of a nirvana there where people were sharing all over the world. You had an expert in something you could reach out to, I think there was really willingness to dive in and trust our professional colleagues and, and really connect with each other to do what's best for students I think that was number one. And just that, that whole explosion in March, April, May, and that professional learning and that networking I think you you went through it as well. I think that, you know, apart from us all, you know, the initial shock and then having to adapt to a new way of working, you know, just general insights on my website, my statistics, you know, people teachers searching for resources, doubled overnight. I think it was pushing half a million hits in April last year. So I'm on. We've done this before actually so but I'm going to remind you when we get past the 25 minute barrier throw a little kind of quick fire questions at you and no pause or hesitating I'm going to see if I can catch you out but we're kind of do a little kind of whistle stop synopsis of all the things we've discussed so I guess, you know, post pandemic virus, etc. If I came over to your part of the world, what would we do? Where would you probably watch a Liverpool game because I'm a massive fan. There you go. I'm an Everton fan, believe it or not. So we'll go to Derby. So schools out today for you. What's the first thing you're doing tonight? Probably bringing my wife to a great restaurant to thank her for her patience and support throughout the pandemic. Fantastic. What your, how do you look after yourself? Well being wise. I've really reframed it over the last eight weeks actually and I get up really early around four o'clock I do some journaling, have a nice coffee, do some reading, writing and then jump on the bike and do some training. What's the one thing you need to be better at? Present. I am always thinking about what's next, what's next, what's next. Okay. Well the next question is what project are you working on? So I won't say necessarily today because it's your day off but what's on your table? I am co-leading a grade nine program that's really looking at how do we reframe and help those kids in their first year of secondary really get a foundation for the future. I've got two books on the go and apart from that trying to get back into Iron Man shape. Right. Fantastic. What piece of advice for a teacher who wants to try Twitter but it's a bit cautious? My piece of advice is try to follow all sorts of different elements in education. If you want to jump into the conversation be curious and be positive and don't let yourself go down the rabbit hole of negativity that often times appears on Twitter. Amen. What would be your piece of advice for a teacher wanting to write a book? That's a great question. I think it's about sitting down and it's really about reflection and really looking at your practice and why do you want to write it. And if it helps you reflect on things and move forward and improve and connect with people and gain more expertise then it's the right reason to write a book. If you want to be a sage on the stage and profess something then it's not the right reason. Sure. Are you a better science, PE or history teacher? That's a great question. Honestly, I don't think the subject really matters. I think my role is very much to connect with kids with whatever the subject is and I think I do a decent job of that. Am I the best person in the building? Probably not. But I try to improve every year. What's your go to app on your mobile phone? Spotify. Spotify, okay. Your favorite marking technique to reduce that time? You know, whether it's written or verbal, what is it? I don't really have one for us to be honest with you. A lot of it is comarking with students or with colleagues because we do a lot of co-teaching. Okay, sure. Who would you recommend I interview next and why? Who would I? That's a great question. Andy Hargraves is always fun. Yeah, well, I've done Andy, so give me another one. I love Andy. I think Nadia Lopez has a really good voice at the moment and what she always does and her capacity to reflect on things and to bring forward the equity piece and the inclusive piece I think is somebody that you should be interviewing. Nadia, I'll write that down. If you had 30 seconds with one of your Canadian MPs, what would you say 30 seconds go? We need to invest in children in the same way that we invest in everything else and that we need to give them the best possible chance at being a contributing member of society and that they see that and that we need to model that, meaning if we need to give three meals a day for the kids that don't have that and then we should be doing that if we need to give free universities so that we can move forward a free college or vocational so that they can see something going forward. I think that we need to support them so that they don't get in debt way too early and they can be contributing members to society. Fantastic. I'm going to assume you're doing your dream job and if it wasn't it'd be playing for Liverpool, but what's your wacky career you never had? Wacky career I never had. Your dream job, you know, that kind of 10 year old dream. I'm doing it, I think. But it would probably be your right to probably be my Liverpool career and I would love to be one year internship with Jurgen Klopp. I think I would learn a lot about how to create the right culture. What would be your advice to your 16 year old self? Be curious. Okay, biggest career achievement? Biggest career achievement. Biggest one that you're like, you know, let's do a show off. What are you most proud of? I think, honestly, it's being able to connect with people all over the world and learn from them. Where can listeners find out more about you? My LinkedIn or my Twitter account probably. Okay. And my last question, Armand, what would you have, what's your legacy? What do you want to be your legacy? I'm hoping my legacy is that I've been able to give the foundation to hundreds of thousands of students and teachers that we can move forward in an inclusive, sustainable world. Fantastic. So there you go. And one last thing, Armand, could you just shout out that book you wrote during the pandemic, the Hope one? Yep. So Hope Where Are You, it's on Twitter as well. It's free in over 50 languages at HopeWhereAreYou.com. Fantastic. And so it's pushed two million downloads, I believe, of something. Yeah, it's pushed over two million downloads and we've gave away the creative licensing. So you can also code, you can code your own story. There's all sorts of things going on with it. Brilliant. Right, Armand, it's, you know, second time lucky. Thank you. And lucky you, summer holidays. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Ross. I really appreciate it. Yeah, look after yourself. Speak to you soon.